Ben Carson, former neurosurgeon and one Republican presidential candidate who has seen his poll numbers rise in recent days, told a nationally syndicated radio-show host America would benefit from disbanding the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“We don’t need a Department of Veterans Affairs,” Carson said to Dave Ramsey, on the financial planning strategist’s nationally syndicated show. “Veterans Affairs should be folded in under the Department of Defense. And it should be a smooth transition.”
His comments come on the heels of running revelations about the VA’s poor treatment of veterans. One such report indicated certain VA hospitals purposely delayed providing care in order to keep within budgets. Another videotaped report took viewers inside a VA medical facility and panned the camera lens at the completely un-staffed front office. Meanwhile, a narrator, who was presented as a veteran with medical needs, explained the normalcy of that scenario and how nurses dismissed the seeming subpar professionalism by saying patients could use a button to call them, if needed.
With the congressional call for speedy VA reform as a backdrop, and the White House’s apparent foot-dragging on demanding change and accountability, Carson said: This is entirely unacceptable.
“We need to be looking at the way we take care of soldiers,” he said, adding military recruitment had falled off 14 percent in part to this poor treatment of military members. “[Potential recruits] are looking at what we are doing to our veterans. When a person applies for the military, they should be in a support system immediately from day one. Particularly when they go through combat, because that is when all the trauma is occurring.”
He also said advanced planning for the career and employment needs of veterans was key.
“We should have people in place a year before their time of discharge to be working on their integration back into society,” Carson said. “There shouldn’t be a period of unemployment when they come out of the military.”
