by Edward Stevens
The restrictions, adopted 5 years ago by the Drug Enforcement Administration to curb a national epidemic of opioid abuse, are for the first time, in effect, forcing veterans to return to the doctor every month to renew their medication, although many were already struggling to get appointments at overburdened VA health facilities. And even if patients can get appointments, the new rules pose an additional hardship for many who live a good distance from the health centers.
Although the tighter regulation applies to everyone on opioid painkillers, it’s hitting veterans especially hard because so many are being treated for horrific injuries sustained during the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have become dependent on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ beleaguered health-care system for medical care. It is also exposing doctors who are just there to pick up a paycheck and will put regulations and DEA quotas before the heath and well being of their patients. The VA is rife with too many of these doctors and nurses who have zero empathy for their patients. Our investigators here at Veterans Voice of America have been following a case where Dr. Gerald Melchor, refused to order pain meds for a patient who just had a tooth pulled and because the tooth crumbled, the extraction had to do much more damage to his gums than normal. The veteran had already began using other pain meds to attempt to get off the opioids with another specialist, with the agreement he could get back on if pain demands it. The veteran arranged ahead of time with the specialist if dentist prescribed his regular pain meds could he put other meds on hold and take his regular meds. The specialist saw no problem but the dentist was an outsourced contract periodontist and could not prescribe them. Dr. Melchor refused to even prescribe enough for the week-end until the veteran could get through the worse of the pain. His tooth had been infected and the infection also got into his jawbone intensifying the pain even more. The veteran is trained in suicide prevention and used his support system to deal with his own PTSD triggers that this event caused, however many other vets are not as equipped and could have had a worse ending for them.
Meet Dr. Gerald Melchor 
His University is 104th in the Nation, but their medical Pgm is unrated. All of his online reviews are unacceptable if one was looking for a doctor rated well. Unfortunately, Veterans have to taker what is given to them. Here are some of his reviews by other Veterans.
"This doctor is about the same as having no doctor he does does nothing but type on his computer.".
"Over the past 4 years, this "doctor" totally missed my decline into MDS. I am now facing a long period of blood transfusions and chemotherapy and a sharp decline in my quality of life. The only upside is that the VA is having to pay thousands of dollars for my treatment because of his incompetency.."
"He and his nurse don’t listen and never seem prepared or care for that matter. The want to argue. Poor care!"
