Health
care
Ex-VA doctor: Phoenix report a 'whitewash'
A doctor
who first exposed serious problems at the troubled Phoenix Veterans Affairs
hospital said Wednesday that a report on patient deaths there is a
"whitewash" that minimizes life-threatening conduct by senior leaders
at the hospital.
Dr. Samuel
Foote, a former clinic director for the VA in Phoenix, said a report by the
department's inspector general appears designed to "minimize the scandal
and protect its perpetrators rather than to provide the truth."
At best,
"this report is a whitewash," Foote told the House Veterans Affairs
Committee. "At its worst, it is a feeble attempt at a cover-up. The report
deliberately uses confusing language and math, invents new unrealistic
standards of proof ... and makes misleading statements."
The Aug. 26
report said workers at a Phoenix VA hospital falsified waiting lists while
their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in
chronic delays for veterans seeking care. The inspector general's office
identified 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments in Phoenix, but the
report said officials could not "conclusively assert" that delays in
care caused the deaths.
Acting
Inspector General Richard Griffin denied that the report sugarcoated any
information about the Phoenix hospital or the VA, and he disputed suggestions
by several Republicans that the report was altered at the request of the VA.
The
sentence declaring that investigators could not "conclusively assert"
that delays in care caused any patient deaths was not included in a draft
report, and some lawmakers have suggested that Griffin's office added the
language in an attempt to soften an explosive allegation that helped launch the
scandal in the spring -- that delays in care may have resulted in patient
deaths.
Griffin
rejected that idea out of hand.
"This
sentence was inserted for clarity to summarize the results of our clinical case
reviews," he said, adding that the change was by his office on its own
initiative.
"Neither
the language nor the concept was suggested by anyone at VA to any of my
people," Griffin said.
It is
common practice for an inspector general to send a copy of its findings to the
agency in question to elicit an official response, which is then included in
the final report. Griffin said his office has a policy of making no substantial
changes to reports after allowing the VA to inspect and comment.
Veterans
Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has called the IG's report troubling and said
the agency has begun working on remedies recommended by the report.
Foote, who
is now retired, started sending letters to the VA's Office of Inspector General
last year, complaining about systematic problems with delays in care. He told
investigators that up to 40 veterans may have died while awaiting treatment at
the Phoenix hospital and that staff, at the instruction of administrators, kept
a secret list of patients waiting for appointments to hide delays in care.
Foote later
took his claims to the media and to Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of
the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, who announced the allegations at an
April hearing. The resulting scandal led to the ouster of former VA Secretary
Eric Shinseki and a new law overhauling the agency and granting veterans easier
access to treatment outside the VA.
Foote, who
is now retired, told a House committee that the inspector general repeatedly
downplayed facts and minimized consequences for patients who ended up on secret
waiting lists and who eventually died.
No comments:
Post a Comment