There is more than one Veterans Administration (VA) scandal.
There is the one we have been talking about – though mainstream media are already happy to move on, thus again protecting the Obama administration – concerning unconscionable waiting times for Veterans to get health care, the fraud which seems to be endemic in VA “waiting lists”, and the deaths of dozens (maybe a lot more) veterans who were not provided care in a timely manner while the “waiting list” fraud was being perpetrated.
And there is the scandal concerning people who tried to blow the whistle on what was going on at these hospitals.
Read these excerpts from article at US News and World Report, to see just how ugly it is:
Conscientiousworkers at the Veterans Health Administration aware of theiremployer\’s reputation for punishing people who expose wrongdoing weregiven a new outlet last week.
TheProject on Government Oversight (POGO) and the Iraq and AfghanistanVeterans of America unveiled an encrypted websubmission form Thursday soliciting horror stories in the wake ofa nationwide furor about fudged wait time records and relatedveteran deaths in Phoenix.
Blowingthe whistle with the help of interested nonprofits is perfectlylegal, three attorneys who specialize in whistleblowing law tell U.S.News.
Andusing a third party to snitch on bad behavior may be well worthconsidering.
“Inshort, VA employees can still be protected if they go to nonprofitsor the press rather than the agency,” says Cornell Law Schoolprofessor Stewart Schwab. “This is particularly so when there hasbeen a pattern of unresponsiveness.”
StephenKohn, executive director of the National Whistleblower Center, knowsthe risks of internal reporting. He\’s currently representing asurgeon who blew the whistle on shocking safety violations at the VAhospital in Dallas about two years ago.
Thesurgeon, Kohn says, wrote a detailed memo to superiors noting thatcolleagues nearly had him remove the incorrect kidney from a patientand, in another instance, presented for surgery a man too senile toprovide informed consent.
Thesurgeon was fired – despite, Kohn says, an admission of the errorsfrom the doctor’s boss – and he\’s been struggling eversince for reinstatement from the federal government\’s three-memberMerit Systems Protection Board.
Can this possibly surprise you? Doesn\’t it stand to reason that the same administration which is running this horror show would also be heavily invested in shutting up anyone who might blow the whistle on them?
Since US News is a mainstream media venue, maybe its exposing of this scandal will shame a few others into speaking out about it. But, with so many acting as “Accomplice Media” over the past five years, I have my doubts.
In any case, you know. Be sure to tell your friends. This must – must – see the light of day.
