Military & Veterans

A Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general's report on delayed health care at the Phoenix VA medical center used a standard to evaluate patient deaths that would be virtually impossible to meet, according to medical experts. Inspector General Richard Griffin, who oversees the VA's internal watchdog agency, stressed in his Aug. 26 report that investigators were "unable to conclusively assert that the absence of timely quality care caused the deaths" of Arizona veterans who died while on ... Read more

Crucial language that the Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general could not “conclusively” prove that delays in care caused patient deaths at a Phoenix hospital was added to its final report after a draft version was sent to agency administrators for comment, the Washington Examiner has learned. The single most compelling sentence in the inspector general’s 143-page final report on fraudulent scheduling practices at the Phoenix veterans’ hospital did not appear in the draft version, ac... Read more

Scott Davis testified before Congress on July 8. Since then he felt intimidation at work, but said this week he has felt threatened. Scott Davis told the House Veterans' Committee at a hearing on whistle blowers that the problems he has seen have hurt hundreds of thousands veterans. Davis is a program specialist at the Veterans Affairs National Health Eligibility Center. Davis reported on a litany of issues at the center that he said including "the possible purging and deletion of over 10,000 v... Read more

Congress will meet with Veterans Affairs Department officials next week to demand answers on how the agency is handling appeals filed by veterans whose compensation claims were denied. The focus on the Board of Veterans Appeals comes as the VA works at restoring trust to a department seriously shaken by confirmed reports of secret wait lists, systemic manipulation of patient data and instances of veterans dying before getting to see a doctor. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colorado, told Military.com on ... Read more

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) made the following statement after Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald requested an in-depth review of VA policies related to research of Gulf War illnesses: “As a Gulf War veteran, I’m pleased that VA is responding to my request to review the policy surrounding Gulf War health research to ensure objective research on chronic illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans. We have learned a lot in the past twenty years about the debilitating physical ... Read more

A draft report that could show whether top officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs pressured the agency’s inspector general to soften its damning assessment of patient deaths at a Phoenix hospital is being withheld from a congressional oversight committee, the Washington Examiner has learned. Richard Griffin, acting inspector general at the veterans’ agency, is refusing to turn over the draft version, which was submitted to top VA officials for comment prior to the publication of the fi... Read more

They know the effects are real and lasting; they deal with them every day. The problem for two Highlands County Gulf War veterans is they think the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is slow to offer those veterans assistance and they want other former military personnel to know they have support. Larry Roberts and Randy Livingston both served with the U.S. Army during Desert Shield-Desert Storm in the early 1990s and both have chronic health problems they attribute to exposure during their to... Read more

What does it take for the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire a rogue employee? That’s a question the Montgomery Advertiser asked after an agency employee allegedly drove a patient to a crack house and left him there overnight. The newspaper, which serves Alabama’s second-largest city, said in a recent editorial that the VA’s response raises questions about “what constitutes a firing offense in the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System, if indeed anything.” The VA employee — a peer-sup... Read more

The U.S. House Committee on Veteran's Affairs is seeking answers about why a Tuskegee VA employee took a recovering patient to a crack house and is still employed more than a year later. U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, wrote a letter to VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald on Thursday detailing the Montgomery Advertiser's Aug. 17 story on an investigation that found the employee was guilty of patient abuse, misuse of government vehicles,... Read more

A bipartisan group of lawmakers demanded Wednesday that the Department of Veterans Affairs improve its response to an independent board created to look at Gulf War illness. "It has been of great concern to us that VA's reaction to reports of the congressionally mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses, detailing VA staff manipulation of Gulf War research to mischaracterize the health problems of these veterans, has been to eliminate the independence of the committee, ... Read more