• A veteran's story

My name is George David Ellis Sr., a Vietnam Veteran with a Purple Heart living in Douglas. My dad died in Vietnam; his name is on the Vietnam Wall. I was 17 years old when I learned that my dad died. I knew then I had to go. I was and always have been proud to be a Marine and to serve my country. After placing myself in harms way time and time again, God’s grace saw me home to live my life.

Several years ago, I started utilizing the Veterans Affairs hospital for my health care needs. I don’t have other insurance and never needed any before now. The VA has taken care of my needs 100 percent of the time — they’ve been awesome.

On July 23, 2008, I was taken by ambulance with severe chest pains. I was diagnosed with a very large blood clot in my right lung just outside my heart and subsequently developed pneumonia. My family notified them I was a VA patient. I was admitted to the ICU in CRMC due to my unstable condition for five days when the doctor told my wife of his concern that my condition was worsening rather than improving. He felt it was necessary to transfer me to another facility at this time due to my condition and the fact that I was in need of a pulmonologist which CRMC didn’t have on-call. Knowing I was ‘VA’ he attempted to transfer me to Lake City VA, Gainesville VA, Dublin VA to no avail — no one would accept me because of my condition. So, he started calling civilian hospitals, no one wanted to accept me there either because “he’s VA”. Finally, a caring doctor in South Georgia Medical Center agreed to accept me. I was in the ICU for four more days under the care of specialists. After two days of treatment in SGMC, the doctors made the decision to ‘hold all meds’ and took a wait and see’ approach. To the doctor’s surprise, God stepped in. I pulled through and started making improvements.

The VA paid the balance of my bills at CRMC immediately. The VA has, however, denied payment to SGMC stating “a VA facility was available.” The cardiologist in Douglas has even mailed a letter stating all the contacts that he attempted to get me transferred to a VA facility. I have been trying to get this bill paid. I have cooperated with all their requests, sending them all the required documentation. I received a letter from them stating they would ‘send the case to Washington, D.C.’ Most recently, I received a ‘statement of case’ letter stating that the transfer was ‘unauthorized and unnecessary,’ never mentioning the ‘VA facility availability’ issue mentioned earlier. Any other excuses not to pay? These doctors provided the best care possible to me regardless of my insurance status at the time, I think they need to pay them for their services.

If anyone knows someone that could be of assistance in this matter, please contact me or feel free to forward this letter. As I understand at this time, it may be another year before I even know if they are going to pay. What’s a Veteran to do?

George D. Ellis Sr.

Douglas

• A smart health care system

There are too many “smart” people writing letters to the editor trying to educate the rest of us dummies on what kind of health care we should embrace here in the United States. I don’t claim, by any means to be an expert on health care, but I learned how to read when I was in the first grade. Utilizing my first grade education, I can learn a lot from people that are smarter than I am such as Newt Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich has spoken, written, and supported efforts to reform health care in ways that will preserve competition between private companies while ensuring the highest quality and most timely care possible. Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation can explain it much better than I can.

I encourage all citizens, regardless of your political slant, to read Gingrich’s vision.