In 2014, after it was revealed that at least 75 US veterans had died while waiting to get appointments at their VA hospitals — with more than 120,000 never tended to, just abandoned or deliberately shuffled from one bureaucratic boondoggle to another — public outcry forced the following: congressional hearings, an internal VA investigation, an Obama administration investigation, an FBI criminal probe, a RAND Corp. investigation, an Office of Special Counsel investigation, and the “early retirement” of VA chief Dr. Robert Petzel and Eric Shinseki, secretary of veterans affairs.

“I assure you, if there is misconduct, it will be punished,” then-President Barack Obama said. “I want every veteran to know we are going to fix what is wrong.”

Yes, the federal government was going to internally fix what was wrong with a massive, federally funded institution.

Last Thursday, more than three years and two new secretaries later, the New York Times reported that current head David Shulkin is fighting to keep out the director of the Washington Medical Center, Brian Hawkins, who was fired last month for running a hospital at “the highest levels of chaos.”

Hawkins has appealed to the government’s Merit Systems Protections Board, claiming wrongful termination. The board gave him a stay, even though President Trump signed a law in June eliminating appeals by senior department executives to that body. But because disciplinary action was initiated against Hawkins in April, his lawyer claims wrongful termination — such action predates the new law.

So Shulkin now says he’ll use new evidence to keep Hawkins out, even though Hawkins can then appeal to a new internal review board, about which we know little.

What is clear is that multiple federally appointed boards and committees are working at cross-purposes to ostensibly fix the VA.

Sound absurd? Like the height of dysfunction and bureaucratic infighting, siphoning time, money and attention away from the very people Veterans Affairs and the federal government are meant to protect?

Welcome to the VA.

If you’ve never dealt with the VA, it’s impossible to understand how infuriating, dispiriting and broken it is. My initiation dates back to November 2013, when my father, a Vietnam vet, was scheduled for surgery to remove a supposedly localized mass in one lung.

We were told to arrive at the hospital at 11 a.m., before he’d be wheeled into the OR — which we did, only to find an empty hospital room. Where was he?

Oh, we were told, he was wheeled in at 7 a.m.

Why? No one had an answer.

Four hours later, a very kind resident emerged to tell us they had been wrong: My father actually had Stage IV lung cancer. There was nothing they could do and they were closing him up now. The doctor who’d made this catastrophic misdiagnosis, it turned out, was also the lead surgeon, and I asked to speak with him.

The resident told me that wasn’t possible. Why? He couldn’t say.

“No, really,” I said. “Why can’t I speak to my father’s surgeon?”

“You just can’t,” came the reply.

It was a harbinger of stonewalling to come. The VA loves to claim all kinds of outreach, services and benefits, but you’d better know your way around. At the Brooklyn VA, the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) maintains offices, but if you seek help from them, you can’t seek help directly from the VA — and DAV reps often aggressively pursue confused veterans.

Who benefits and by how much is unclear, but DAV employees aren’t always transparent with these veterans, some of whom my father and I met one winter weekday.

These men were older, sick and frail. One had risen early, made a very long drive, and now sat with the others outside these offices. They were waiting for their representative to show for their scheduled appointments.

I asked how long they’d been waiting. Hours, they told me. Their rep might not show up at all. It happened all the time. They had no choice but to wait.

Couldn’t they complain?

They laughed. To whom?

My dad and I walked down the hall looking for help. There, in a big office overlooking the river, sat a well-fed, well-tended anonymous chief of something. His role was deliberately ambiguous, but he had a corner office. Surely he could do something.

We walked in and I asked where the DAV rep was. Did he know there was a line of older vets waiting for help?

This supervisor wasn’t all that surprised. He told us that sometimes those reps just don’t come in, and since they’re not part of the VA structure, there was nothing he could do.

“There’s nothing I can do” is among the most common refrains you’ll hear at the VA. “You need to see someone else about that” is a close second.

His eyes wandered back toward his computer screen, cueing us to get up and leave. I slid my New York Post business card across his desk. “Call me if anything changes,” I said.

It is no exaggeration to say this staffer leaped out of his chair and ran down the hall for help. That was the first time I saw my father laugh since he was diagnosed.

Our next challenge was to get my dad his full monetary benefits. When a veteran gets a terminal diagnosis, he or she automatically receives 100 percent of promised funds — it’s like a monthly stipend.

In order to get that, however, the veteran must fill out reams of paperwork, then mail said paperwork — no email, no faxing even — to an office in Philadelphia. There, it sits on someone’s desk — and you’ll never know who has it, whom to call, whom to email, where it is, what’s the status, what’s-the-holdup-someone’s-literally-dying?

One of my dad’s incredible nurses told me to get up early the next morning and go the VA Headquarters on Houston Street with my dad’s application. “You might get something done,” she told me.

I was there as soon as they opened, at 8:30 a.m. I sat in a huge waiting room as veterans old and young, some alone and some with families, came in, filled out paperwork, and sat down, every single one looking exhausted and resigned.

One older veteran told me he expected to be there all day and never see anyone, because it happened all the time, and he had no recourse but to come back day after day and ask for help.

How could this be? How was this allowed to go on?

I took my paperwork, attached my business card to it, and went to the front desk. “I’ve been waiting over three hours and was one of the first two people here,” I said. “I’m hoping someone can talk to me soon.”

Less than half an hour later, a middle-aged man briskly entered the waiting room and led me to a table. He had my father’s paperwork. “I’ll get this done quickly,” he said. “You can email me directly. I’ll be your point of contact.”

The next day, my father had his 100 percent. An otherwise quick response? Normally within a year to 18 months.

Of course, my position as a journalist benefited my father — but there’s no reason every single veteran and their advocates shouldn’t receive such prompt, attentive and accountable treatment. Clearly it’s not that difficult to provide. I don’t regret helping my dad, but I do regret that in those moments, I couldn’t also do more for those veterans languishing in waiting rooms.

Nor do I want people to think that everyone at the VA is apathetic or indifferent. The nurses who took care of my dad were almost uniformly wonderful, and his brilliant oncologist, Dr. Andrea Leaf, is the reason my dad is still alive, still looking healthy and kicking ass in general years after he was given six months to live.

There are currently 152 VA centers in the United States and 1,400 community-based outreach centers. As of last July, the VA self-reported 8.9 million vets in its care each year, an oddly static number given our ongoing presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of 2014’s VA scandal, Sen. Tom Coburn’s office reported that over 1,000 veterans may have died waiting for care or from VA malpractice during the past decade.

Over the weekend, Trump signed an emergency bill that gives $2 billion to a program allowing vets to seek help in the private sector. It sounds good, but consider this: A veteran can only benefit if they have to drive over 40 miles to their nearest facility or wait more than 30 days for an appointment.

Trump’s new bill also pours another $1.8 billion into VA health care, including the establishment of 28 new VA facilities.

But I believe the system is beyond fixing. It’s congenitally, irretrievably broken and should be abolished. Free up all that money and all those salaries to allow our veterans access to free health care in the private sector, seeing whomever they need whenever they want. They shouldn’t be asked to fight a second war at home, one with no end in sight.

As for Brian Hawkins, who oversaw that chaotic VA? That federal protections board ruled that during the stay it granted him, he would be reinstalled to “the position he held prior to removal.”