Word: winsick
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...CYRIL WINSICK WAS SERVING AS A forward spotter for a mortar crew when he was captured by German troops near the town of Aachen in October 1944. He spent much of the following winter being force-marched across Germany before he was liberated in April 1945. A half-century later, Winsick still can't speak of his ordeal without crying, but at least it did earn him one benefit: as a former pow, he was entitled to lifelong free medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Or so he thought...
...Winsick's doctors at the Long Beach, California, VA hospital discovered a benign tumor growing in his brain five years ago but decided he could not survive surgery to remove it because of a heart condition, which had required a quadruple by-pass operation. Fortunately, there was a life-saving alternative: he could undergo "gamma knife" radiation. The VA hospital didn't offer that particular treatment, but the nearby private Hospital of the Good Samaritan did. Winsick's VA doctors set out to arrange VA funding for Winsick's treatment there...
Five years later, they are still trying. VA bureaucrats insist that Winsick does not qualify for such funding and should rely on his Medicare medical coverage. But Winsick, thinking he was covered by the VA, never signed up for Medicare. He is eligible to sign up in January 1996, but his coverage will not begin until next July. By then he could be dead. "I fought in the war, and I was a prisoner," says Winsick. "I expected humane treatment afterward. I'm getting shafted...
According to Richard Robinson, benefits-services director of the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, Winsick's special status as an ex-POW obligates the VA to get him the treatment he needs by contracting with a private provider if necessary. "We run into this type of wrongful, dollar-driven disallowance all the time," says Robinson. "They're trying to cut corners. The name of the game is to try to save money and to hell with the veteran...
...neck in a swimming accident, praises the dedication of the staff at the VA Hospital in the Bronx, New York, but says they are shorthanded. "Sometimes when I need to have my lungs suctioned--I cannot cough--no one comes until I'm bubbling over, gargling for breath." Winsick confirms that in Long Beach, staff and services are being "nibbled away all the time.'' A diabetic who usually sees a podiatrist once a month, Winsick says none has been available for several months...
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