Calling for his resignation is a “knee-jerk reaction” and ignores the “huge influx of challenges” facing the VA, Durbin said.

President Barack Obama has dispensed a top aide to investigate allegations that some veterans may have died while awaiting care at a facility in Phoenix. Government investigators are also looking into other VA facilities.

McCaskill’s office conducted a fourth annual survey of veterans’ experiences at VA facilities in and near St. Louis. The latest unscientific survey was completed by 352 veterans.

About one in four said they had trouble scheduling appointments at St. Louis-region VA facilities, but that was an improvement over the more than one in three reporting problems last year.

Reviews on cleanliness, the ability to be seen by a health provider in a reasonable time and communications with doctors were better in 2014 than 2013, but there were still many complaints, according to McCaskill’s survey.

One respondent said it took three weeks to get vaccination records; another complained of waiting an hour in the doctor’s office, only to be seen by another doctor. But another veteran who gets services from the VA and through a spouse’s health plan said “the VA is just as good, and better in many respects, than the private sector.”