Gibson: 18 vets on wait list died in Phoenix
The Los Angeles Times reports that Sloane Gibson, the interim Secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, admitted that the internal investigation conducted at the Phoenix VA hospital found at least 18 veterans had died while on the “secret list” of veterans awaiting appointments;
Sloan Gibson said the VA had contacted 1,700 veterans kept off an official waiting list at the Phoenix VA facility to schedule their appointments and confirmed that at least 14 of those 18 later contacted the VA for end-of-life care, Gibson said.
He said he didn’t know whether this group was part of the 40 patients that VA employees and veterans have said died while waiting for medical care. Gibson said he has asked inspector general officials to get back to him on that matter and to tell him how many of those deaths were associated with delay in patient care.
If that is the case, Gibson said, he would come back to Arizona and “personally apologize to those survivors.”
Gibson went on to say that three senior bureaucrats may be fired soon from the hospital, but they need to get those low-level employees, too. If they knew what was going on without speaking out about, those people who just went along because it made their workday easier need to go, too. Nothing will change without a clean sweep, top-to-bottom.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
He’ll personally apologize? Well, sir that’s right nice, but they should all be fired- a month ago. Goddamn it.
I do not understand why these guys haven’t been charged and fired. This is not a job performance issue. This is criminal. This is malfeasance. This is bullshit. Fire the bastards. Get them out. Charge them. If there is a legal issue related to it (e.g., DP rights), then so the hell what? Even if they were to prevail, they would be out for many months appealing and the message their replacements and the other satff would recive would be profound and immediate. Boot ’em.
2/17 Air Cav…Roger that! Right on target!
Is there no one in the system that understands that talking about it is not the same as doing something about it, much less fixing it?
Meanwhile, we continue to pay all these clowns as they continue to NOT do their jobs. Get rid of them. Like yesterday. Preferable with a bill for pay they had previously not earned.
Jonn, in reporting these Vet issues, is there any way to indicate what category the veterans who died were in. Were they combat-related, service-connected, or just people who served their country and contracted medical problems after discharge.