Government watchdogs at the Department of Veterans Affairs wrongly closed a years-long investigation into failures at a Wisconsin VA hospital and attempted to prevent a report about the probe from going public, the Senate Homeland Security Committee has concluded.
The alleged cover-up was detailed in a report released Tuesday by the committee, which has looked into allegations of veteran mistreatment at the Tomah, Wis., VA hospital for the past 16 months.
Committee investigators detailed a pattern of stonewalling and evasion from the VA’s inspector general, which declined to provide documents and answer questions about aspects of the Tomah probe despite having conducted its own investigation into the same problems in 2013.
For example, the VA inspector general refused to provide Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, with draft versions of a report on the Tomah inspection that might have shed light on information that was removed from the final document.
The Tomah VA medical center has long boasted the nickname “Candyland” for allegations that its physicians over-prescribed drugs to veterans.
“A culture of fear and whistleblower retaliation at the Tomah VAMC allowed over-prescription and other abuses to continue unaddressed,” the committee found in its review.
According to the committee’s report, the local VA employees’ union raised concerns about over-prescription at the Tomah VA hospital in 2009.
“VA [inspector general] personnel on site at the Tomah VAMC cancelled their scheduled meeting with [union] officials less than one hour before the meeting was scheduled to occur,” the report said.
“According to the [union] officials, they supplied a package of documents outlining concerns about over-prescription of drugs to veterans and issues with management, among other concerns. When asked by Chairman Johnson’s staff about this information, VA [inspector general] officials said that they did not recall receiving the information from [union] officials in 2009.”
Congressional investigators said the inspector general did not make clear whether they ever looked into the local union’s allegations in 2009.
Johnson decried the “preventable” failures that plagued the Tomah clinic, including the VA’s decision to hire a physician with a history of abusing prescriptions.
“Dating back nearly 10 years, the Tomah VA has been plagued by allegations of dangerous prescription practices and administrative abuses,” Johnson said Tuesday during a field hearing in Tomah. “For years, actions that should have served as warning signs were ignored and problems at the Tomah VA festered.”
The physician in question, Dr. David Houlihan, was nicknamed “Candyman” for his prolific prescriptions.
“In 2002, the VA hired Dr. David Houlihan, and it promoted him in 2004 to be chief of staff of the Tomah VA. Both times, VA regional leadership was aware of charges against Dr. Houlihan from the Iowa State Board of Medical Examiners that he had inappropriate professional boundaries with a patient,” Johnson said.
The VA did not formally address the Iowa allegations against Dr. Houlihan until 2009. By that time, VA regional leadership determined that the issue was ‘resolved.'”
Houlihan lost his medical license in March, roughly 12 years after he first became known as the “Candyman.”
At least two veterans allegedly died between 2007-15 as a result of the drug cocktails they were prescribed at the Tomah VA hospital, the committee found.
A whistleblower at the facility committed suicide in 2009, the same day he was fired from the Tomah center for “vague” reasons after raising concerns about the amount and type of drugs being given to veteran patients.
The committee noted “uncertainty” surrounding the date the VA inspector general closed its investigation of the Tomah hospital, and estimated that the probe concluded somewhere between March-August 2014.
