A Department of Veterans Affairs official who has in the past been embroiled in scandal within the agency has been named the new director of the troubled Phoenix VA Health Care System, internal emails show.
Deborah Amdur, who was involved in a VA effort to conceal the fact that recalled drugs were prescribed to a veteran at the Vermont hospital she previously oversaw, will begin her appointment at the Phoenix VA facility next month, according to records obtained by the Washington Examiner.
A VA spokesperson confirmed Amdur’s appointment.
Amdur stated in a letter to Sen. Kelly Ayotte earlier this year that she was not aware a drug her hospital had given a veteran, causing him to have a violent seizure, had been recalled before it was prescribed. Amdur also denied the agency had withheld information about the drug from the affected veteran after Ayotte pressed the VA on his behalf.
Even so, Amdur was appointed by VA Secretary Robert McDonald to an investigative panel tasked with looking into alleged drug abuses at the Tomah, Wis., medical center.
That facility was dubbed “Candyland” by local veterans due to the fact that physicians there prescribed so many opiates.
The VA’s decision to name Amdur to lead the Phoenix system will likely raise eyebrows, given that a national scandal involving a cover-up of long delays in care began in Phoenix.
Dozens of veterans at the Phoenix VA hospital died while waiting to get an appointment as agency employees hid the delays by creating secret patient waiting lists.
No officials at the Phoenix facility have been fired for their role in the scandal, and only three employees have been fired agency-wide since the scheme was uncovered last year.
John Cooper, spokesman for Concerned Veterans for America, said Amdur’s appointment represents the VA’s “insistence on rotating subpar personnel among its facilities.”
“This kind of personnel musical chairs is nothing new for the VA,” Cooper said. “If history is any indicator, Ms. Amdur’s tenure as director of the Phoenix VA will not be much better than her predecessor’s.”
