VA, Medicaid are thuggish in practice

I had a heart attack in 2009. I have never been able to get the Veterans Affairs Hospital or N.M. Medicaid to approve the cardiac rehab required to go to school and work. Right now, I am actually enrolled at UNM due to the New Mexico Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. But originally, I was dropped as a client at N.M. DVR because I could not get the documentation N.M. DVR wanted from the VA or N.M. Medicaid.

When I was discharged from the Presbyterian Cardiac Clinic after the heart attack, I had the release packet — the full Presbyterian Cardiac Clinic release packet and the prescriptions for heart medication I needed to survive, written by the cardiac doctors at Presbyterian Hospital — and N.M. Medicaid ordered Walgreens on Central Avenue to refuse the prescriptions. I was left without access to the medications for the better part of a week, and that is a virtual death sentence. I had to have N.M. Rep. Gail Chasey intervene on my behalf. Right now, I have two different prescriptions from the VA for cardiac care, outside the VA, because essentially the VA is refusing me all care at this time.

Of course, N.M. Medicaid is also obstructing my access to care.

As it is right now, I should not even be enrolled at UNM because I was never able to complete the cardiac rehab. Keep in mind I am as healthy as a person with paraplegia and a heart condition could be, and I really am capable of finishing school at UNM if I have support, and I can even go to work. But I face daily deliberate obstruction at the VA and at Medicaid, and access to education and employment is defined by access to medical services. So, not only did I face the Sarah Palin death panel, courtesy of privateered Medicaid, the VA and its network of supporters — N.M. Medicaid — has been keeping me from having access to follow-up care for my cardiac condition and keeping me from completing my education and going to work.

On the ground and in the trenches, and that really is what medical services for the disabled is, trench warfare, there is a complete and willful avoidance of the circumstances. I do think we have some extreme problems in medical care in New Mexico. In an effort to clear up some of the ungodly mess and the deliberate obstruction to cardiac care and every other kind of care I face at the VA and elsewhere, one of my “licensed care specialists” called up the VA Zia Spinal Cord Clinic outpatient nurse, who just screamed at her over the phone and among other things was actually screaming, “The VA has no money.”

We are supposed to swallow these creepy B.S. stories because we are veterans and/or disabled. This is what anyone who is “different” faces at the VA and through Medicaid. Simply put, we are bullied and brow-beaten by poorly trained personnel each and every day and there is simply no end to it. I am looking at the “prescriptions” written by VA doctors for “cardiac rehab” such as the shoe prescriptions written by VA doctors that were written to avoid providing items and care, as in cardiac rehab, I need to finish school. It is one big fat thuggish joke and it goes on every day. At UNM, I had to laminate my prescription for my scooter because employees at UNM Enrollment Services told people I did not have a prescription for my scooter and as a consequence a sign was put up at the UNM Student Union Building prohibiting my scooter in the SUB. This type of behavior gets completely out of control during election years.

I was kept out of the SUB for several weeks this semester despite the fact that I went to appropriate offices pleading my case. The level of obstruction for disabled students is simply extreme at UNM. And for those of us actively involved in trying to bring effective change in the extreme conditions for students with disabilities, the conditions are just devastating. All institutional means under the sun, and then some, are used to disrupt access for students with disabilities through N.M. public education, at every level, and it is not going to stop. And well before the institutional discrimination that defines “public school” in N.M., disabled individuals, and in particular disabled veterans, had to navigate the medieval “fish ladder,” on the parched supply-side crag that was once a flowing creek, up and over the local, state and federal dams that divided the institutional landscape.

Some do make it up the winding switchback road over the entirely insolent institutional dam in a “bubble” truck. But what about the rest of us trapped in the dried-out crags, left without shoes for paraplegia, without access to appropriate and timely cardiac rehabilitation? And why are we left in such pathetic conditions? Why, you ask? Because we spoke up about the death panels delivered by privateered Medicaid and we spoke up about the deliberate lack of access at the VA PTSD clinics and we spoke up about the deliberate killing of veterans at the VA in Albuquerque in a new America defined by inadequacy and thuggish bullying brought about by crushing, out-of-control government established after the 9/11 debacle.

It does appear that neither one of these candidates running for president of the United States knows these things are going on and it appears that neither one is going to do anything about the situation. And to speak of these circumstances in any way brings immediate retribution.