{"id":70439,"date":"2017-02-20T11:06:18","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T16:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=70439"},"modified":"2017-02-20T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T16:06:18","slug":"opioid-theft-at-the-va","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=70439","title":{"rendered":"Opioid theft at the VA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/national-news\/2017\/02\/20\/ap-exclusive-drugs-vanish-at-some-va-hospitals\">Associated Press<\/a> reports that VA medical and hospital administrative personnel are facing scrutiny because some controlled substances from Veteran facilities are ending up on the street rather than being used for the treatment of the nation&#8217;s military veterans;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It\u2019s not clear if the problem is worse at the VA than at private facilities, where medical experts and law enforcement officials say drug theft is also increasingly common in a time of widespread opioid abuse in the U.S. But the VA gets special scrutiny from lawmakers and the public, given Americans\u2019 esteem for ex-servicemembers served by the agency and because of past problems at the VA, especially a 2014 wait-time scandal in which some patients died.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose VA employees who are entrusted with serving our nation\u2019s wounded, ill and injured veterans must be held to a higher standard,\u201d said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Reported incidents of drug losses or theft at federal hospitals jumped from 272 in 2009 to 2,926 in 2015, before dipping to 2,457 last year, according to DEA data obtained by AP. \u201cFederal hospitals\u201d include the VA\u2019s more than 1,100 facilities as well as seven correctional hospitals and roughly 20 hospitals serving Indian tribes.<\/p>\n<p>The inspector general\u2019s office estimates there are nearly 100 open criminal probes involving theft or loss of VA controlled substances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, it&#8217;s just one more thing for newly confirmed VA Secretary David Shulkin as he assumes control of the system.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to OC for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Associated Press reports that VA medical and hospital administrative personnel are facing scrutiny because some &hellip; <a title=\"Opioid theft at the VA\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=70439\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Opioid theft at the VA<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}