HONOLULU — Wait times for veterans in Hawaii and other parts of the Pacific trying to see a primary-care doctor for the first time have dropped to 35 days from 110 days in May.
Wayne Pfeffer, the director of the Veterans Affairs Pacific Islands Health Care System, had said in June that he hoped to reduce the wait time for new patients to 30 days within three months.
Pfeffer told Hawaii’s congressional delegation in a letter that the number of patients on an electronic waitlist for care has also decreased. There were 37 patients on the list as of Tuesday, down from more than 1,800, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.
It’s challenging for the agency to staff critical positions given the remoteness of some areas served, which include the Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa and Guam. There are a relatively small number of medical professionals living in these areas, Pfeffer said in the letter.
The agency is intensifying its recruitment, using more telemedicine and rotating staff to islands to address these challenges, he said.
Nationally, the VA still is struggling to regain trust after long patient delays were covered up. The department more recently has been criticized for being slow to fire senior managers implicated in the scandal.
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said the shorter wait times in Hawaii and the Pacific are encouraging, “but it is critical that we keep the pressure on to make further progress.”
“It is important to remember that the nationwide scandal had to do with the manipulation of data, so we will independently verify these numbers,” Schatz said. “Additionally, we need to ensure that the system has been reformed so that the reduced wait time can be sustained.”