<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Official: No link in VA delays, deaths

Watchdog says he's found no proof as he probes long waits, misconduct

The Columbian
Published: May 15, 2014, 5:00pm

At the Portland VA Medical Center, 96.55 percent of patients get their appointments within 14 days, public affairs officer Daniel Herrigstad said. The goal is 99 percent.

According to an April report that measured outcomes at 128 Veterans Affairs facilities, patients at the Portland VA Center had to wait longer than most for their primary care appointments; Portland ranked 125th in terms of primary-care waiting time.

However, patients at Portland are generally safer, according to the report.

Portland is trying to shorten waiting times by increasing staff as well as funding for primary care services, Herrigstad said.

The Portland VA Medical Center, which includes a Vancouver campus, was No. 35 among 128 sites in terms of inpatient satisfaction.

At the Portland VA Medical Center, 96.55 percent of patients get their appointments within 14 days, public affairs officer Daniel Herrigstad said. The goal is 99 percent.

According to an April report that measured outcomes at 128 Veterans Affairs facilities, patients at the Portland VA Center had to wait longer than most for their primary care appointments; Portland ranked 125th in terms of primary-care waiting time.

However, patients at Portland are generally safer, according to the report.

Portland is trying to shorten waiting times by increasing staff as well as funding for primary care services, Herrigstad said.

The Portland VA Medical Center, which includes a Vancouver campus, was No. 35 among 128 sites in terms of inpatient satisfaction.

WASHINGTON — New complaints about long wait lists and falsified patient appointment reports have surfaced at Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics across the country, the department’s internal watchdog said Thursday, but he said there’s no proof so far that delays in treatment have caused any patient’s death.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he was “mad as hell” about allegations of severe problems and said he was looking for quick results from a nationwide audit. He rejected calls for him to resign and a senator’s suggestion that he call in the FBI to investigate.

At a sometimes-combative congressional hearing, Richard Griffin, the department’s acting inspector general, said that after an initial review of 17 people who died while awaiting appointments at the Phoenix VA hospital, none of the deaths appeared to have been caused by delays in treatment.

“It’s one thing to be on a waiting list, and it’s another thing to conclude that as a result of being on the waiting list that’s the cause of death, depending on what your illness might have been at the beginning,” Griffin told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

Griffin said his office is working off several lists of patients at the giant Phoenix facility, which treats more than 80,000 veterans a year. He said a widely reported list of 40 patients who died while awaiting appointments “does not represent the total number of veterans that we’re looking at.” He said his office has 185 employees working on the Phoenix case, including criminal investigators, and said he expects to have a report completed in August. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Arizona and the Justice Department’s public integrity section also are assisting in the investigation.

Since reports of the Phoenix problems came to light last month, allegations about problems at VA facilities have spread nationwide. At least 10 new allegations about manipulated waiting times and other problems have surfaced in the past three weeks, Griffin said.

“I’m not aware, other than a number of isolated cases, where there is evidence of that,” he replied when the committee’s chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked bluntly if VA officials at the facilities were “cooking the books.”

Shinseki resisted calls from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to call in the FBI.

“Isn’t there evidence here of criminal wrongdoing, that is falsifying records, false statements to the federal government? That’s a crime,” said Blumenthal, a former state attorney general and federal prosecutor.

VA operates the largest single health care system in the country, serving some 9 million veterans a year. Surveys show that patients are mostly satisfied with their care but that access to it is becoming more of a problem. Vietnam veterans are aging, and increasing numbers of vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are seeking treatment for physical and mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorders.

Loading...