Navy vet: Northport VA didn't provide post-surgery pain meds

<p>A Navy veteran from Speonk says the Northport VA Hospital failed to give him any post-surgery pain medication after his knee replacement procedure.&nbsp;</p>

News 12 Staff

Feb 15, 2018, 12:30 AM

Updated 2,471 days ago

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A Navy veteran from Speonk says the Northport VA Hospital failed to give him any post-surgery pain medication after his knee replacement procedure. 
John Fink says the operation went off without a hitch, but that he had to deal with "horrific" pain in the aftermath. 
"After my surgery, I was supposed to get a morphine drip and unfortunately, according to what they told me, the authorization was lost in the computer," said Fink. 
He says he was without any pain medication for 3 ½ hours. 
Fink says a Northport VA doctor told him the computer glitch was part of a pattern that has affected other patients. 
"They blame it on a computer. I blame it on the administrator of the hospital for not addressing this issue and putting in a secondary protocol to prevent this from happening," said Fink. "Especially knowing it's happened to other veterans and not just myself."
A spokesman for the Northport VA told News 12 that privacy restrictions prevent them from publicly discussing individual patients' care, but said they will look into the case. 
Fink says he's speaking out because he hopes what happened to him won't happen to another veteran in the future.
"We served our country to support the rights and liberties of every civilian…we deserve more than we're getting," says Fink.