Category: Veterans’ Affairs Department

David sends us a link to the Daily Caller which reported the news last week that Dr. David Houlihan, the Tomah, Wisconsin VA hospital’s chief of staff may get his job back after losing his state medical license for over prescribing dangerous drugs to veterans, so much so that the hospital was known as “Candy Land” and the good doctor himself as known as the “Candy Man”. The State Medical Board yanked his credentials two years ago, but a judge restored those creds ahead of an investigation, according to local news;

Administrative Law Judge Jennifer Nashold overturned the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board’s emergency suspension, saying in a ruling made Friday and released Monday that the evidence against Houlihan didn’t justify the immediate sanction while the medical board continues its investigation into whether he violated state law.

[…]

The center reported on Jason Simcakoski, a 35-year-old Marine Corps veteran who died from a drug overdose while at the hospital in 2014.

The medical board, in issuing its emergency suspension March 16, said Houlihan did not act as “a minimally competent” doctor when he prescribed an unnamed patient Suboxone, commonly used to treat opioid dependence, for chronic pain and anxiety, on top of nine drugs he was already taking.

The patient matched Simcakoski’s circumstances.

The board also said Houlihan acted outside the scope of his psychiatry practice when he treated patients with chronic pain, often prescribing opioids in “dosages greatly exceeding the recommended daily amount” for up to 12 years, creating “an unacceptable risk” of harm to patients and the public.

He’s been on paid leave since 2014, and in the interim started his own practice.

While the VA goes through the motions of investigating the doctor and his methods, acting Director Victoria Brahm of the hospital has forbade the media from the premises;

“The media will not be allowed on the campus while the DAB is meeting as we do not want to disrupt the environment for our residents, Veterans coming in for healthcare services or staff,” read the memo, signed by acting Director Victoria Brahm. “Therefore if you see members of the media on campus not being escorted by Matthew Gowan, Tomah VAMC public affairs officer, please contact the VA Police Department.”

As the weeklong hearing of the Disciplinary Appeals Board — a grievance process outlined in federal code — got underway, Brahm softened her tone.

“The hearing is already generating much attention and for the reasons I’ve mentioned above, it has been decided that the media will not be authorized access to the hearing,” the new message stated. “If you see unescorted members of the media on campus please contact Matthew Gowan … so that he can assist them.”

So, I’m convinced that the process will be fair, impartial and in the interests of veterans.

Instinct sends us a link to the story about Glenn Bates, who ran the Veterans’ Canteen at the VA Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He worked there from 2007 to 2013 and in that time he stole $314,400. Good work if you can find it.

As the former chief of the Veterans Canteen Service, Bates oversaw the VCS Patriot Store, cafeteria food services and vending sales.

“He stole the cash receipts of sales of commemorative military hats to veterans and others by volunteers at the VAMC,” [U.S. Attorney Barbara] McQuade’s office said. “And he stole the cash receipts of several vending machines there. Bates deprived the VA’s Veterans Canteen Service of needed revenue and used it instead to patronize a strip club in Columbus, Ohio, where he paid for lap dances and sex. He also used the stolen funds to gamble at casinos.”

Bates was hired by the VA despite the fact that he had a criminal record. In the 70s, he was in federal prison for stealing a car and in 1992, he was sentenced to probation for a felony arson charge.

For embezzling more than 300 grand from the VA, Bates was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution.

Two stories from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs which illustrates what they think is punishment. First up – a VA employee in Puerto Rico, Elizabeth Rivera Rivera, who is looking at charges of armed robbery. When she was arrested, the VA fired her, but she got a union representative to stick up for her, according to the Daily Caller.

Employees said the union demanded her job back and pointed out that Tito Santiago Martinez, the management-side labor relations specialist in Puerto Rico, who is in charge of dealing with the union and employee discipline, is a convicted sex offender. Martinez reportedly disclosed his conviction to the hospital and VA hired him anyway, reasoning that “there’s no children in [the hospital], so they figure I could not harm anyone here.”

The union’s position — that another employee committed a crime and got away with it, so this one should, too — has been upheld by the highest civil service rules arbiters, and has created a vicious Catch-22 where the department’s prior indefensible inaction against bad employees has handcuffed it from taking action now against other scofflaws.

So, now Rivera Rivera is going to work with a GPS anklet and she works at the security department monitoring CTV screens. Of course, the VA is just taking it’s cues from the Merit Systems Promotion Board which determined last month that the VA can’t inconsistently punish employees. That case involved Kimberly Graves and Diana Rubens who abused the VA’s relocation pay system. That brings us to our second story. It seems that the VA is punishing acting VBA chief Danny Pummill who approved Graves’ and Rubens’ relocation pay. He’s taking a 15-day suspension for that, according to US News;

Pummill was the VBA’s deputy chief when Rubens and Graves implemented the job relocations, which put both of them closer to their families. Pummill replaced former VBA chief Allison Hickey, who retired as allegations against Rubens and Graves were made public.

Rubens earns $181,497 as director of the VBA’s Philadelphia regional office, while Graves receives $173,949 as head of the St. Paul, Minnesota, benefits office.

Graves and Rubens were reprimanded Tuesday and had their pay cut by 10 percent. The two women were reinstated to their positions last month after administrative judges overturned their demotions.

[…]

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, called the actions “a weak slap on the wrist.”

Accountability at the VA “is almost non-existent,” Miller said. “One thing is clear: this dysfunctional status quo will never change until we eliminate arcane civil service rules that put the job security of VA bureaucrats ahead of the veterans they are charged with serving.”

Of course, Pummill can contest the suspension, he probably will, and it will probably be stored, because some animals are more equal that others.

According to the Daily Caller, Germaine Clarno, a federal employee union president, and, of course, a Democrat, in Illinois regrets that she didn’t go to Senator Mark Kirk with her concerns about how vets were being treated because she didn’t want to talk to any Republicans.

Clarno’s tale of haunting regret is at least the second case of people connected with VA unions admitting they did not speak up about life-and-death issues because the idea of talking to a Republican was too distasteful.

Clarno also admits that number of veterans had died waiting for treatment, while she tried to talk to Democrat politicians who didn’t seem interested. Including our old friend, Tammy Duckworth;

The two women then went to Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a disabled veteran Democrat who also represents the area and was an official at VA before being elected to Congress, but since was a new lawmaker without leadership roles on any committees, she did not help. Clarno and Nee said Duckworth wouldn’t even read a report about the situation at Hines.
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“It was really upsetting. This isn’t about, you know, whether you have a D or an R at the end of your name. This is about the VA, this is about protecting the men and women who fought for our country,” Clarno said.

I’m pretty sure that Ryan Zinke nor Duncan Hunter let their junior status impede their work for veterans and the active force, but then we’re talking about Duckworth, aren’t we? She got her’s, so the rest of you can wait. Duckworth was in the VA and didn’t do anything for veterans, so let’s send her to the Senate now. I’m constantly told that the treatment of veterans isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, but, it looks like I’m not the only one who thinks it is, am I?

Thanks to Richard for the link.