Email: "Joe – I am a fan of your website & come here to read the truth. I feel as though I know your entire family at this point & am aware that your Dad receives care at the Veteran’s Hospital; care which has at times not met the high standards that it should. I am concerned that the standards of care will only worsen at our VA beginning soon.
The VA Western New York Healthcare System (Buffalo & Batavia facilities, plus all the outpatient facilities located between Niagara Falls and Olean) has lacked strong, solid leadership for well over a decade. This may sound harsh; however, the truth frequently is. The worst offender leading our VA was a gentleman by the name of William F. Feeley, who served as Director in WNY between 1998 & 2003.
One has to question how this man’s career ever advanced in the manner that it did. Feeley is presently serving in Washington at the Department of Veterans Affairs as the Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations & Management. The mess that Feeley left behind in Buffalo has yet to be cleaned up 6 years later.
We were finally blessed in WNY to receive in December 2008 an Interim Director who has made remarkable strides in only a few short months. Finally a leader that the VA WNY Healthcare System deserves! David West is someone who can lead the WNY VA into the future & see to it that the system is able to meet the needs of our newest heroes when they return home.
A Veteran himself, West is a man of honor & integrity who doesn’t miss a beat! I challenge anyone to spend 5 minutes with this gentleman & not be impressed & see what he has to offer to Veterans healthcare. Unfortunately, any day now, perhaps as early as tomorrow, an announcement will come naming William F. Feeley as the Director of the VA WNY Healthcare System.
You see, his boss, Dr. Michael J. Kussman, Under Secretary for Health, has decided to retire (rather than resign). The housecleaning has begun at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington & Feeley has made his deals to bring him back to Buffalo until he reaches age 65.
My question is, where is our Congressional & Senate delegation in this regard? Amongst others, Brian Higgins, Louise Slaughter, Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand… where are you?
Why are you not jumping up & down screaming to keep David West as the permanent Director of the VA WNY Healthcare System?
Why do you not feel that the over 40,000 Veterans who are served by the WNY system deserve the very best?
Why should the VA WNY Healthcare System be a dumping ground for old politicos & be run by a lame duck awaiting retirement who not only has over 30 years of various Federal service, but who was an ineffective leader when he was apparently “in his prime” between 1998 & 2003?
Feeley already had his chance in Buffalo. It’s someone else’s time to lead now, someone equipped to handle the future, someone who cares about the future. Delivering David West to WNY in December was a Christmas Miracle. Perhaps our elected & appointed officials can now very quickly deliver an Easter Miracle by keeping David West in WNY on a permanent basis.
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” – Abraham Lincoln
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