And In the VA News Department . . .
. . . here are three more items. And, unfortunately, they’re not “good news” stories.
- Two more senior VA officials have resigned. The current VA Undersecretary for Health, Dr. Robert Jesse, and the VA General Counsel, Will Gunn, have resigned. This means that the VA Secretary, five of the VA’s Assistant Secretaries, and 2 of the VA’s Undersecretaries have resigned recently. It won’t fix the problems in that agency – but maybe it’s a start.
- I say maybe because the VA still seems to be in denial regarding the seriousness of its internal problems. The Office of Special Counsel released a report two days ago that, in essence, says the VA still doesn’t realize how serious its problems are. According to the OSC, VA senior leadership continues to use the “harmless error” excuse in ways that defy logic and which ignore “the severity of systemic and longstanding problems.” The OSC also indicated that it has “50 pending disclosure cases alleging threats to VA patient health and safety, and another 60 cases of alleged retaliation against whistleblowers in the department.
- And, finally: another whistleblower has come forward from the Phoenix VAMC. Along with corroborating previous whistleblower reports, this individual alleges personal knowledge that at least 7 veterans died while awaiting care on the Phoenix VAMC’s “secret waiting list”. She further alleges that there was a management-directed effort to hide excessive waiting times, as well as a concerted effort to manipulate records to cover up the fact that people had died while awaiting care.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: resources are NOT the underlying problem at the VA. Leadership and priorities are the problem, along with a poor organizational culture.
The former can be fixed relatively easily. The latter, unfortunately, will IMO likely take at least a decade to change.
Hat tip to the Army Times for the above links.
Category: Veteran Health Care, Veterans' Affairs Department
A decade? That’s what they said 15 years ago, Hondo.
Getting rid of the union/s would do much to solve the problem. Declare those stupid union agreements null and void (who has the authority to enter into such agreements anyway?) this afternoon, then fire every one of those union members without the common decency to show up for work and do their jobs. We could call for volunteers who would do a much better job of scheduling than these clowns.
A workforce trained to be asleep at the wheel has serious institutionalized inertia. Overcoming that inertia will mean shit canning a lot of middle managers who are used to doing next to nothing and replacing them with people who are motivated and determined to accomplish the goals of the business, which is to satisfy client requirements.
That’s always the problem with government businesses. After a while the solution is never to find more qualified and ambitious personnel the solution is throw money at more higher level managers who aren’t looking to do anything more than take a check from the government for as little effort as possible. Because the business can’t fail there is never a motive to operate efficiently.
I’ve seen it in the private sector among our competitors, someone starts out strong and after a time thinks they own their clients. The difference is, in the private sector the client almost always has other options. Those other options keep the smart businesses motivated, the less intelligent companies end up extinct.
here’s a fix. hire vets to replace those that can’t hack it.
taking care of our own. I’d gladly switch departments.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: resources are NOT the underlying problem at the VA. Leadership and priorities are the problem, along with a poor organizational culture.”
Jonn, nothing I can add better.