GOOD LORD: 4 Quit After OK Veteran Dies With Maggots in Wound.

Four staff at the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs resigned after maggots were found in the wound of a Vietnam veteran who died in October. Another VA staff member insisted that the maggots did not cause his death.

Raymie Parker identified the man as his father, 73-year-old Owen Reese Peterson. “During the 21 days I was there … I pled with the medical staff, the senior medical staff, to increase his meds so his bandages could be changed,” Parker told the Tulsa World. “I was met with a stonewall for much of that time.”

Executive Director Myles Deering explained the maggots were discovered while Peterson was alive, but did not cause his death. Rather, the man came into the VA hospital with an infection and died “as a result of the sepsis,” complications from that infection. Nevertheless, Deering must have hated saying the words, “He did not succumb as a result of the parasites.”

That there were any parasites involved is a disgrace, and the staff members who resigned must have known it.

Abolish the VA and give vets vouchers for the private health coverage of their choice.