DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA — Disturbing images of elderly veterans being ignored in a hospital waiting room are going viral online, with users upset at the blatant disregard the suffering vets were treated with.
On February 24 at the Durham VA hospital, marine veteran Stephen McMenamin and his wife, Hanna, sat in the hospital waiting room for seven hours. Throughout their long wait, they say they saw a couple of aging veterans who were clearly in noticeable pain go unattended for hours.
The man in the wheelchair was yelling in agony, shaking to the point he almost fell out of his chair due to phantom pains from his left leg amputation. Alarmed at the level of disrespect the vet was being treated with, the couple tried to get the attention of a nurse to check on him. For some odd reason, the nurse they asked didn’t seem to care. The other veteran, suffering from terrible back pain, tried to sit in a recliner chair. When the nurse rudely told him he was not allowed, he simply laid down on the floor.
When Hanna posted photos of the sad scene along with an account of what they witnessed, she claims the hospital asked her to take the pictures down, apparently uninterested in addressing the negative publicity. Instead, they enlisted the help of Army veteran John Burk, who’s championing the cause on social media to expose the despicable treatment these vets, and many more like them, have been subjected to.
Hanna McMenamin’s original Facebook post has been shared more than 138,000 times, and in response, the hospital has since reassigned the insensitive nurse, removing her from patient care.
