More than a dozen senators have joined a letter to VA asking it to specify disciplinary actions against management officials in response to the manipulation of patient waiting time records there.
The department’s response has become part of the overall dispute, with the VA and administration officials citing figures that critics claim are inflated by including actions unrelated to the scandal. A recent “fact-checker” type news article, for example, concluded that only one to six people actually responsible for the manipulation have been fired in the more than two years since the scandal broke.
“Instead of holding senior executives and mid-level supervisors accountable for encouraging patient wait time manipulations, the VA has repeatedly given these employees the opportunity to quit, retire, or find new jobs without consequences,” the letter said, citing another news report that only eight of 92 new managers installed in medical centers came from outside the department.
The letter asked for data on senior executives and mid- managers who have been fired or otherwise disciplined for their involvement in wait time manipulations; how many were allowed to leave without consequences; what the VA has done to stop the manipulation of records and the timeframe for any changes in progress; and what new legislative authority would be needed to “successfully change the culture of corruption, hire new leadership from outside the agency, and keep all VA employees accountable for their actions.”
