Shinseki rewards murderer at Pittsburgh VA
TSO forwards a link in the Pittsburgh Gazette from a reader in regards to the $62,000 annual bonus (the highest allowable cash award for a government executive) paid to VA regional director Michael Moreland in Pittsburgh just days before an investgation laid the deaths of six veterans from Legionaire’s Disease at his feet;
That confluence of events has members of Congress, VA employees and families of the Legionnaires’ victims furious that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki — who nominated Mr. Moreland — allowed him to receive the award even though many people believe he deserves at least some of the blame for the outbreak since it occurred under his watch as regional director.
Many believe Mr. Moreland played a more direct role by closing the Special Pathogens Laboratory — which oversaw Legionella control and prevention — and firing and forcing out Legionnaires’ experts Victor Yu and Janet Stout, when he was director of the Pittsburgh VA in 2006.
“Are you kidding me?” said Judy Nicklas, daughter-in-law of William Nicklas, 87, of Hampton, who died in November after contracting Legionnaires’. “Unbelievable.”
Oh, by the way, Moreland received the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award at a black tie banquet Friday at the White House. OK, maybe “murderer” is a little strong, but certainly Moreland is culpable in those deaths if what the Gazette reports is true.
But more importantly, this is indicative of the incompetence that is routinely rewarded in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs under Shinseki. The Administrator of the Department has to be a leader, and we constantly find Shinseki with shit on his shoes. He’s no leader and veterans are fricking dying as a result of his utter incompetence as a failed leader.
The Pittsburgh VA first publicly revealed it had an outbreak on Nov. 16, 2012, even though officials, including Mr. Moreland, knew they had a serious problem as early as July 2011, when Mr. Ciarolla died.
So is this going to be the VA’s Benghazi? Not if you don’t speak out.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
“So is this going to be the VA’s Benghazi?”
Benghazi isn’t even relevant anymore – the administration will just stall until people forget, elections happen and everyone just gives up.
Seriously, I think the VA could kill every veteran waiting for benefits and get away with it. This administration can do no wrong. In fact, they’d get to turn around and say they eliminated the backlog before the deadline.
I’m not saying we should give up, just that nothing will come of speaking out until there are significant changes to the people in charge.
Maybe he can reissue black berets to the VA staff so they can be more elite and thereby overcome these obstacles.
Some of the networks are starting to ask questions that the Administration doesn’t want to answer. And, those questions are being asked publicly. People are starting to realize that the administrations “blame Bush” policy doesn’t fix anything. They are also realizing that we are supporting our enemies more than our allies or even ourselves.
Hospitals are known pathogen breeding grounds, so I think using the term “murderer” for Moreland is wrong. Murder implies there was intent to kill.
Negligence or depraved indifference resulting in death can also be considered murder or at least manslaughter, can’t it? Maybe someone with legal experience beyond watching Law And Order can chip in.
Either way it’s unsat this shit’s going on.
The sewer is slowly beginning to back up. 🙂
There is a mantra with VA employees regarding benefits and veterans.
It goes something like this: “Deny ’till they die.”
Incompetence is more apt than murder, though it seems likely cutting costs was far more important to him than saving lives coming from an outsider’s viewpoint.
The VA never ceases to amaze and disgust me
There are 16 broad CATEGORIES of drug-resistant pathogens listed on the CDC website. It’s no joke, and it’s getting worse. Here’s the link:
http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/DiseasesConnectedAR.html
Government never ceases to amaze me. If any of his family members were sickened you bet heads would roll. He may not have pulled the trigger but he sure had a hand in loading the gun.
@1 “Benghazi isn’t even relevant anymore – the administration will just stall until people forget, elections happen and everyone just gives up.”
Nicely put, that’s because the people that are supporting this administration are in no danger of ever actually having to serve in a danger zone, other than the ones they reside in. The democrats true base has become the slackers, parasites, and layabouts who contribute nothing or next to nothing to the nation. They have no skin in the game regarding Benghazi or the VA or anything where actual hard work might be involved.
I am curious to see how much longer the democrats think they can continue down this path, you can’t solve the deficit on the backs of the rest of us, no matter what they think. So as they eventually have to start cutting down the payouts to these parasites, it should be an interesting moment to view from the balcony.
On topic, murderer might indeed be strong language but he was complicit and not through negligence but through design. He closed the lab and he fired the top experts who were tasked with overseeing the prevention of these outbreaks. He removed all the obstacles to the progression of the disease through the system he was charged with protecting and overseeing. It’s not murder one, but it sure might be murder 2 or manslaughter.
What would be the repercussions for your local privately operated hospital when during a civil suit the discovery process yielded information that the hospital administration knowingly eliminated top staff members whose primary mission was prevention of a specific airborne infection and that infection then killed patients?
We all know what those repercussions would be, millions of dollars awarded and administrators sacked for those decisions. Not given hefty bonuses for being angels of death.
@5. Don’t knock Law and Order. They do shit by the book! In fact, yopu probably could pass Crim Law after watching every episode. As for the ‘murder’ tag, I much prefer homicide in this situation. Although the word is nothing more than taking a human life, most folks incorrectly think of it as being necessarily a crime.
I was going to suggest “Negligent Homicide” until reading VOV’s words. I will now suggest this is at the least manslaughter, if not murder 2, as he suggest may be provable.
As I said on FB, the MSM and Congress needs to repeatedly ask the question of the Administration, “How do you justify the continued employment, and NOT the prosecution of Morehead, and Shinsucki?” This question needs to be asked, until justice is served.
Hell, General Allen’s career was ended on the rumor that he had emailed the chick that screwed Petraeus. The investigation cleared him of wrongdoing. How do you think give awards and bonuses to the guy that was found responsible for the deaths of 6 patients in your hospital??? When the investigation is basically complete!?!?
For precedence in prosecution of those that “negligently” allow the proliferation of Legionaire’s disease, one could probably look up dental facilities that have been less active and less culpable in the matter.
As to outrage, and ending the vampiric political effects of the current administration on Veterans? That’s not going to happen in the current political landscape. Twenty years ago, a low level official wouldn’t have survived the suggestion that the military take a pay cut, or that Veterans be charged for their own health care. Today, the collective electorate doesn’t even notice it, when the President calls for it.
The sad fact is that there are more people with getting their own “free” stuff, than there are that know a Veteran, or care that promises the Nation made are being broken, or that Troops might get screwed.
Pittsburgh VA is a joke. The hospitals send all the patients to the clinics, and the clinics are understaffed. The Johnstown Ckinic was without a doctor for over a year, and only had one or two PA’s in the interim. they finally brought in some contract doctors on 6 month rotations, and that just happened. I havent been scheduled with a Neurologist since 2009. Pittsburgh VA also has taken a shitty approach to PTSD, and is severely underfunded with Physical Therapy for GWOT vets.
Also, i heard from other vets who were at the Pittsburgh VA at the time of the Legionaires Outbreak, and he said nurses were whispering to patients to leave. the hospital made no effort to quarantine parts of the hospital.