Media Advisories
Vets deserve better than VA's practice of rewarding failure
Washington, DC,
August 8, 2013
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The Orlando Sentinel, by Chairman Jeff Miller
The Department of Veterans Affairs has received a lot of negative attention lately for failing to adequately deliver the care and benefits America promised our veterans.
Vets deserve better than VA's practice of rewarding failure By Jeff Miller Orlando Sentinel Aug. 8, 2013 The Department of Veterans Affairs has received a lot of negative attention lately for failing to adequately deliver the care and benefits America promised our veterans. In addition to the department’s massive disability-benefits backlog, a disturbing pattern of preventable veteran deaths and other patient-safety issues has emerged at VA hospitals around the country. Sadly, the department’s widespread and systemic lack of accountability may be encouraging more veteran suffering instead of preventing it. Examples of the department’s lack of accountability are numerous. But almost as plentiful — and even more shameful — are the many cases where VA employees and executives are being rewarded rather than punished for their incompetence. Officials with the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System have botched the handling of a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at nearly every turn. Five veterans are now dead from the pneumonialike disease. But instead of giving those who failed to prevent the outbreak pink slips, VA gave them glowing performance reviews and huge bonuses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to 21 veterans were sickened between February 2011 and November 2012, but that didn’t stop VA Pittsburgh Director Terry Gerigk Wolf from receiving the highest possible score on a VA performance review covering the bulk of the outbreak period. Shockingly, Wolf’s review makes no mention of the outbreak, and instead praises her for leading a “groundbreaking Civility Initiative” and helping improve her employees’ resume-writing skills. Memories of the outbreak seem to have eluded VA officials again when they nominated Wolf’s boss, VA regional director Michael Moreland, for the Presidential Rank Award, America’s highest civil-service accolade. For Moreland, the honor included a whopping $62,895 bonus, which he formally accepted just three days after VA’s inspector general reported VA Pittsburgh’s response to the outbreak was plagued by persistent mismanagement. Most people would find VA’s celebration of Wolf and Moreland in the aftermath of a deadly outbreak they were too incompetent to stop hard to believe. Yet the situation is routine at the department, where failing executives have been collecting massive bonuses for years. Recent examples include the following: A VA executive in charge of the nearly 60 offices that process disability benefits compensation claims collected almost $60,000 in bonuses while overseeing a near seven-fold increase in backlogged claims. A VA health official in New York pocketed nearly $26,000 in bonuses while presiding over chronic misuse of insulin pens that potentially exposed hundreds of veterans to blood-borne illnesses. Two April VA inspector-general reports identified serious instances of mismanagement at the Atlanta VA Medical Center that led to the drug-overdose deaths of two patients and the suicide of another. True to form, VA doled out nearly $65,000 in performance bonuses to the medical-center director who presided over the negligence. In early May, I spent the day at the Atlanta VAMC, along with several members of Georgia’s congressional delegation. Hospital officials told us that although they had identified specific employees whose actions had contributed to patient deaths, no one had been fired. When I asked a roomful of Atlanta VAMC leaders if there were any other serious patient-care incidents Congress needed to know about, they said no, failing to reveal a previously unreported suicide the media would expose just four days later. This alarming pattern of complacency has cast a dark shadow over VA medical centers around the country. For months, Congress has tried in vain to compel VA leaders to take meaningful steps to prevent deaths and adverse incidents. Unfortunately, department officials seem more intent on protecting and rewarding VA’s worst-performing employees than sending a powerful message that substandard care for veterans will not be tolerated. Our veterans deserve better. For VA’s quality of care to improve, department officials must be willing to hold accountable anyone responsible for letting patients fall through the cracks. Rewarding failure will not help VA better serve those who served our country. It will only lead to more delays and more dead American heroes. U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, a Republican from Chumuckla, Fla., is the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. |