World-famous neurosurgeon Ben Carson told WMAL’s “Drive at Five Show” in Washington, D.C. Friday afternoon following VA Secretary Shinseki’s resignation that the greatest problem with the VA system is “too many layers of bureaucrats.”
“I’ve had an opportunity to work at VA hospitals in more than one state and there are a lot of very, very fine people. Dedicated people in them. The problem is there are too many layers of bureaucrats between the patients and those fine people. It results in an incredibly inefficient system and is extremely unfair to such deserving individuals,” said Dr. Carson about what has gone wrong at the VA.
“I don’t think we should abolish the system, but we certainly need to get rid of all of the red tape and bureaucracy,” he told WMAL on Friday.
Carson suggests that maybe new leadership is needed, but the real problem is the bureaucracy.
The “One Nation” author continued: “The real issue is that you got to get all that bureaucracy out of there and quite frankly, do we even need that system for most of our veterans? Why can they not be served at the local hospitals where they live and not have to drive 50 or a 100 miles to get a to a veterans facility? These are honored people in our society. They should be welcomed at any of our facilities and we should be honored to take care of them.”
Carson did add that he believes there are some necessary specialized areas in the VA system such as “spinal injury, burns and post traumatic stress disorder.”