When President Obama travels Friday to Ground Zero in the Veterans Affairs hospital scandal, the commander in chief will encounter overwhelming skepticism about his ability to fix what whistleblowers call a culture of corruption that continues despite White House pledges to eradicate it. A staffer at the hospital says retaliation against internal critics is going on even after Obama replaced his top Veterans Affairs official in 2014.
Obama’s trip to the Phoenix, Ariz., VA hospital is long overdue, critics argue. Revelations about treatment at that facility led to disclosures of similar problems — including chronic delays in medical care — at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals nationwide. Continuing VA troubles culminated in the ouster last year of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki.
But complaints about VA facilities continue to roll in, and the president took heat for driving by the Phoenix VA hospital — his motorcade did not stop — when promoting his housing agenda in Arizona two months ago.
Though veterans advocates felt slighted by that episode, the bigger problem, they argue, is taming a sprawling bureaucratic system resistant to reforms and combative toward those who attempt to expose wrongdoing.
Brandon Coleman, who worked at the Phoenix VA hospital, said he was put on administrative leave earlier this year after informing his supervisor that suicidal veterans were not being treated at the emergency room there.
“I’m on paid administrative leave for no other reason than whistleblower retaliation. [VA Secretary Robert McDonald] said this would no longer happen to whistleblowers,” Coleman told the Washington Examiner in an interview Thursday, just after attending a meeting with McDonald in Arizona. “I’ve been home 44 days. He said he would look into it. It’s just a huge bureaucratic mess and hard to get anything done. I’m hoping something comes from it, but I have reservations.”
Cases like Coleman’s are endemic, watchdogs insist, pointing to new complaints about phony waiting lists and veterans struggling to get access to hospitals for life-threatening conditions.
The Examiner first reported that more than 1.5 million medical records were destroyed at veterans hospitals without proof that patients received any medical care. Another Examiner investigation found that medical appointments were purged at facilities in Los Angeles and Dallas to make the backlogs look smaller.
And those at the center of the debate say the Obama administration has failed to hold accountable those responsible for the mistreatment of veterans.
“Nearly a year after the nation was rocked by a scandal involving secret waiting lists at more than 100 VA facilities, not a single VA senior executive has been fired for wait time manipulation,” Florida Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the Veterans Affairs’ Committee, said. “And to this day, key leaders tied to the scandal remain on the job or on paid leave, all while VA lacks a permanent inspector general.”
McDonald was unanimously confirmed as secretary in July and appears to have the backing of lawmakers, despite being forced to apologize for embellishing his military record, among other controversies.
However, Miller and other Republicans say the Obama administration isn’t moving quickly enough to address cooked books, backlogs of disability claims and deaths at VA hospitals. And they say the White House should give veterans the opportunity to seek care at private facilities if they can’t receive help at the nearest VA hospital.
According to the White House, Obama in Phoenix will “hear about progress made to improve the VA’s ability to serve veterans in a timely and effective manner, areas where more progress is needed and further steps that are planned.”
Regardless of promises made by Obama or even newly passed legislation, whistleblowers argue nothing will change unless supervisors are punished for preventing the airing of complaints.
“The pace of the reforms as far as changing the VA culture against whistleblower retaliation has been nonexistent. It hasn’t trickled down to the facility level,” Dr. Katherine Mitchell, one of the original whistleblowers in Phoenix, told the Examiner. “I’ve heard from employees at the Phoenix VA who are scared to death. No one has any confidence yet that there is any change in the culture. Until you hold them accountable, no employee is going to believe the retaliation has stopped.”
