VA removes officials from Manchester hospital
The Boston Globe reports that two officials of the Manchester, New Hampshire VA hospital have been canned after the paper’s investigation of conditions there.
The hospital’s chief of medicine, Dr. Stewart Levenson, said he had “never seen a hospital run this poorly.”
The staffers, who reported the Manchester hospital to a federal whistle-blower agency, described an operating room infested with flies, veterans with crippling spinal damage that might have been prevented, and surgical instruments that are obsolete and sometimes unsterile.
The Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin fired hospital Director Danielle Ocker and Chief of Staff James Schlosser who will shuffled off to other duties, according to ABC News.
Ocker and Schlosser acknowledged significant cuts in services, such as the elimination of cataract surgery, and administrative problems, such as ordering a $1 million nuclear medicine camera but never installing it because it was too big for the examination room. As a result, the hospital stopped offering nuclear stress tests for heart disease risk and bone scans that can detect tumors this year.
But Ocker and Schlosser said they were surprised that so many medical staff members reported the problems to federal investigators. They said the hospital was addressing the shortcomings and patient safety hasn’t been compromised.
The Globe also noted that the hospital was rated one of the best VA facility in the country until their report.
Despite the problems at the facility, it was in 2016 given four out of five stars by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which, before the story was published, defended that decision.
The whistle-blowers have alleged that the four top administrators, including Schlosser, the only doctor, were more concerned with performance ratings than with properly treating the roughly 25,000 veterans who go to Manchester for outpatient care and day surgery annually.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
sadly, with all that it may BE one of the best VA facilities in the country – which says volumes about the rest. Single payer medical, anyone?
I’ve used the Manchester VA hospital and I’ve had no complaints or issues with them at all. As a matter of fact, I’ve whole heartedly endorsed them to other vet’s and have never heard anyone complain about their treatment there.
That said, I’ve never had surgery there. I’ve never even glanced in their operating room or been exposed to anything like what the article mentions.
To your point, my only other experience with the VA was in Sacramento, where a doctor told me to wrap my knee in a flannel shirt soaked in linseed oil to treat a badly healed knee cap I fractured while in Iraq.
“Reassigned.”
They need to be reassigned to scrape barnacles off a carrier by hand sans SCUBA gear, while it is underway mid-Pacific.
How does the staff at such a place let this kind of thing go? Anyone with a shred of conscience and professionalism would flat-out refuse to perform a medical procedure on somebody under such conditions.
An OR infested with flies ???
Dear God, which surgeon would ever work in something like that???
And no, this is the exact reason we don’t want single payer.
The problem with health care is that it is too much controlled by the government and that leads to reams of paperwork and less and less contact with individual patients.
If they were reassigned, they certainly weren’t fired.
I listened to an interview on Manchester radio this week with Dr Shulkin. More heads are on the block as the investigation gets rolling and dont be fooled about those removed so far. They are going to be fired.
Dr Shulkin also said if the hospital is unable to perform medical care it will be shut to doing that and Vets will be given immediate access to elsewhere. He was pretty forceful in saying the old business as usual was over. Anyone screwing the pooch was finished not transferred elsewhere as in days past
“Reassigned”??? WTF is that? Fired and stripped of their medical board licenses for starters!
Reassigned pending the investigation.
Everyone should take a breath
I’m guessing it was one of the best because reports and concerns were “filtered” to ensure the best possible outlook for the facility.
The same reason why certain installations win the “Best Army Installation” award when they have all kinds of shit that is broken.
If they did a “Worst installation/facility” competition and the winner for being worst got a budgetary reward to fix the broken shit, every facility/installation would be showing their “true” situation.
Listen to Dr Shulkin on Jack Heath’s show yourself
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-New-Hampshire-Today-with-J-27984874/episode/dr-shulkin-department-of-veterans-28316311/
Here is one of the main whistleblowers from this morning
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-New-Hampshire-Today-with-J-27984874/episode/dr-stewart-levinson-manchester-va-28318687/
Now if they could fire the POS Mike Hershman in Fort Wayne…. who was relieved of duty as the Commander of the Ft Eustis Hospital……smog.
It’s a start but alas, a lot more heads need to be on the chopping block for real change to come about!
The NH Congressional delegation (all D females) constantly lament there is no VA hospital bed space in NH.
While pushing for that SOUNDS good, some of them have been pushing that rope for over a decade, mostly to satisfy their, “But we care about veterans!” meme and get reelected.
In reality, there is plenty of bedspace in VA hospitals, all less than a 90 minute drive from virtually any point in NH. Contrast that to some western states that don’t have available bed space within a 4-5 hour drive.
And seriously, would you want to be treated at such a facility, knowing these are the conditions you’ll face? Thanks, but no thanks.