Appointment wait times at the Department of Veterans Affairs are not getting better. Despite billions of extra dollars poured into the agency in the last year and numerous reforms intended to improve veterans’ access to care, whistleblowers and internal documents obtained by CNN reveal some VA facilities continue to grapple with appointment wait times of months or more.
Meanwhile, bureaucratic trench warfare goes on within the VA. Kellie Lunney of Government Executive reports on the contents of a report issued by:
… the American Federation of Government Employees Local 17 [which] reportedly gathered information about the “disruptive and ineffective” managers at the request of VA Secretary Bob McDonald …
He evidently wanted to know about the workplace culture in his agency. Here is some of what he learned:
One senior executive allegedly directed subordinates to sign documents indicating that mid-year performance reviews had taken place even though they had not; another manager played favorites with employees who share his religious beliefs, according to the report. Another supervisor, who is described as a “disgrace” with a “disordered personality,” harasses female employees, the report claimed, while others have allegedly made disparaging remarks about a subordinate’s sexual orientation, forced employees to ask for permission to use the bathroom, yelled and cursed at subordinates, and ignored requests for reasonable accommodations and advance sick leave – some from disabled veterans.
For now:
It’s not clear what, if anything, VA has done with the information and the allegations contained in the report.
But:
Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, said if the abuses are true, “they are to be condemned and should immediately be dealt with through the proper channels.” But Bonosaro said that the “uncorroborated” report uses “salacious” language and often “offers little detail on general accusations beyond hearsay.” SEA and the Federal Managers Association in August sent a letter to several congressional committees asking them to look into what they called “a hit list” and determine whether the union put together the report on official time.
Ms. Bonosaro, who is prepared, evidently, to play hardball added:
“As you know, official time provides for federal labor organizations to conduct representational activities. However, to our knowledge, official time does not cover a union investigating agency managers and executives for the purposes of creating a hit list of those it seeks to have removed from the agency.”
Meanwhile, back in the field, there is bad news on another front. According to yet another report, this one on urology care at the VA hospital in Phoenix:
… some sick veterans died awaiting care and hundreds were medically sidetracked or neglected because of short-staffing and mismanagement …
And:
… 45 percent of patients with bladder, prostate and urinary-tract issues received delayed care, or no care at all, during the last two years, even after patient wait times became a national scandal. The report also says investigators cannot yet calculate the damage suffered because medical records are messed up and missing.
Bernie Sanders, incidentally, was chairman of the Senate committee on Veterans Affairs for a couple of years. He was good at getting money appropriated. Not so good at seeing that it was wisely and well spent. And was claiming, until it was no longer possible to do so, that:
“… the VA holds up as good or better than private hospitals. By and large, veterans throughout America believe that they’re getting pretty good health care.”
