Editor,
Regarding your comment on “Nation’s veterans entitled to better” of Aug. 9. I am an Air Force veteran serving from 1967-1971 and in the last year started utilizing the services of the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis. I have found the services offered there to be very good and the people and volunteers who work there to be truly caring and helpful.
It is true that if you go into the pharmacy you may have to wait as you go through the process of filling/refilling a prescription, which I find to be about the same but my experience there has never taken more than 30-40 minutes. The pharmacy at the VA is serving a hospital full of veterans, and the pharmacy does from time to time get backed up, as I’m sure any pharmacy handling the large volume of requests they handle daily would.
From my experience I can’t imagine someone sitting in the pharmacy for eight hours waiting to fill a prescription. Refills of VA prescribed medications can be mailed to the veterans by either calling them in or by sending the prescription refill documents they send with each mailed prescription. Any veteran having a problem at the VA can ask for and find help if they just ask.
I and many of my fellow veterans in Zionsville feel that the Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis is one of the best in the country and are glad that it is here to serve us. I also have a 94-year-old uncle, who is a WWII veteran living in Tampa, Fla., who has numerous health issues and who the VA there is taking exceptional care of, so while there is always room for improvement we are blessed to have the VA.
I would encourage yourselves and anyone else who wants to know about the operations and services at Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis to go spend an hour there just walking around and seeing what is going on, and if you feel so driven you might want to volunteer a few hours a week and find out how things work.
Andrew W. Thimlar
Zionsville