<p>My wife visits many VA facilities around the nation for her work and finds they are night and day between each other as far as staffing, ambiance, cleanliness and attitude. Basically, large hospitals in large urban areas that are in a heavily populated states are a night mare with surly staff, often filthy conditions, war amp soliders in the hallways sitting aimlessly or in gurneys, and often less that state of the art facilities. She guesses it has to do with how much padding and political patronage goes down in terms of staffing and budget. Perhaps corruption. </p>
<p>The facilities in the low population states or in rural areas are state of the art medical facilities with terrific staff and great places to visit and work with. Staff in these locales are gung ho, very serious about their mission and the facilities seem to be state of the art. The lesson, I guess, is if you lose a leg in Iraq from an IED, get yourself posted to a rural Texas or Oklahoma VA - do not go near any near the Boston - Washington corridor or LA-San Diego. Like most off-the-cuff rules I am sure this is meant to be proven wrong with the exception, but it does seem to be a trend that she has observed.</p>