The government’s Office of Special Counsel on Thursday told President Obama and top members of Congress that the Department of Veterans Affairs has failed to discipline VA employees for their role in the health care scandal, a conclusion many members of Congress have already reached.
OSC made this finding after examining the case of a VA doctor who was a whistleblower, and exposed many of the problems at the VA in Phoenix, Arizona.
Among other things, Dr. Katherine Mitchell said nurses lacked the proper training in medical triage, and 110 veterans “experienced dangerous delays in care.”
Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said in her letter to Obama and Congress that her team substantiated those claims. But she said the VA has yet to impose any discipline on the VA.
“I am concerned by the VA’s decision to take no disciplinary action against responsible officials,” she wrote. She said the absence of any action against VA employees “sends the wrong message to the veterans served by this facility, including those who received substandard emergency care.”
Lerner said her office asked why the VA hasn’t fired anyone, but said “the VA did not provide an adequate justification.”
Her letter listed several other examples in which the VA failed to fire officials, and noted that the VA seems to have no problem taking disciplinary action against VA whistleblowers.
“The VA has attempted to fire or suspend whistleblowers for minor indiscretions and, often, for activity directly related to the employee’s whistleblowing,” it said.
Congress passed legislation a year ago giving the VA more authority to fire people involved in the scandal, in which thousands of veterans were delayed care after they were put on secret waiting lists. Those lists served to hide the fact that they had applied for care months or even years earlier, and allowed the VA to claim they were getting people care quickly.
But so far, the VA hasn’t fired anyone for the official reason that they worked to delay access to health care. Only a few have been fired, for other reasons, and others have been allowed to retire with full pension benefits.
Read the OSC letter here:
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