Challenges Persist for Veterans Diagnosed With Traumatic Brain Injuries
At the VA Medical Center in Loma Linda, some traumatic brain injury patients are reporting long delays in both diagnosis and treatment, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
Sgt. Major Bill Roy, an army veteran of both Afghanistan and Vietnam who has a traumatic brain injury, said he has been waiting nine months to be seen by doctors. Roy said he is on a backlog MRI list with about 1,000 veterans.
Hospital spokesperson Annie Tuttle said that the facility aims to see patients within 30 days when a physician orders an MRI and that the current wait time for an appointment is 10 days.
Beyond wait times for appointments, TBI patients also are grappling with limited treatment options, which focus mainly on symptoms of TBI (Muckenfuss, Riverside Press-Enterprise, 10/16).
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