An Iowa veteran recently lost his life due to a series of botched brain surgeries at a VA hospital in Iowa City. The man was 65-year-old Rick Hopkins – a father and grandfather.
The surgeon responsible for the shoddy surgeries was Dr. John Schneider – a doctor with no fewer than 12 malpractice claims throughout the past 15 years.
Hiring doctors with a slew of malpractice claims is apparently common practice at the Department of Veterans Affairs. According to a USA Today investigative report, VA facilities frequently hire problem doctors and nurses only to turn around and cover up their negligence.
The VA is supposed to help our veterans – not put them in harm’s way. The VA should once again be embarrassed for their mistreatment of our nation’s veterans.
Indeed, the investigative report revealed that VA facilities protect inept healthcare professionals in two ways: first, by hiring them despite their tainted medical resumes; and second, by failing to report complaints, malpractice claims, or disciplinary reporters to state licensing boards.
For starters, the VA willfully hires disgraced healthcare professionals. In the case of the Iowa City VA, Schneider had previously been barred from practicing in the state of Wyoming, due to his own negligence, just a few years prior to being hired by the VA.
He’s not an isolated incident. In 2004, a VA facility in Lafayette, La., hired a psychologist despite a long list of felony convictions on his resume. He was working at that facility until early 2017, when an internal investigation declared him a “direct threat to others.”
A VA in Jackson, Miss., as another example, hired an ophthalmologist who had previously received disciplinary action from Georgia’s medical board. His tenure at the facility left one veteran permanently blinded.
After problem doctors inevitably made an unforgivable blunder, the VA would cover up their negligence by letting them resign with settlement agreements that were never made public. Indeed, the report found an astonishing 230 secret settlement deals for either employee or agency wrong-doing.
Worse still, in more than half of these settlements, mistakes were so egregious that employees should have been fired. Even if healthcare providers were fired, 75 percent of the time the VA agreed to “purge negative records from personnel files or give neutral or positive references to prospective employers.”
Consider Dr. Thomas Franchini, who was hired to work at a VA hospital in Togus, Maine. USA Today reported that VA management let Franchini continue to practice on veterans even after he “drilled the wrong screw into the bone of one veteran” and “severed a critical tendon” of another.
The VA found 88 cases in which they said “Franchini made mistakes that harmed veterans at the Togus hospital in Maine,” according to USA Today. And after finally being quietly ousted by the VA, Franchini was able to move to a private practice. He rejects the VA’s findings and is still treating patients today.*
Such complicity is horrifying, to say the least. In response to these revelations, VA Secretary David Shulkin announced that all settlements more than $5,000 must be approved by top agency officials. While it’s certainly a sign of good faith, that action falls woefully short of fixing the VA’s broken system.
In the meantime, we’re knowingly failing the brave men and women who risked the ultimate sacrifice to serve our nation. Such brazen carelessness is simply inexcusable.
Jacy Gomez (@JacyGomez), a former congressional staffer for Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is an associate at Keybridge Communications, a D.C-based public relations firm. The opinions expressed above are entirely her own.
*This paragraph and the preceding paragraph have been updated to clarify the source of the information.
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