Political Quotes

“You just can't make this stuff up. The committee members have been to the D.C. VA Medical Center, and they put on a nice show when I first became ranking member. They leave a good impression. But the documented issues at the D.C. VA Medical Center are well known, and I want to just walk our colleagues through a few of them because this is how egregious it is. The gentleman's suggestion through this amendment to make sure that the IG takes a very close look at what is going on at this medical center is critical. The D.C. VA Medical Center was found to have paid exorbitant amounts for supplies and equipment, including $300 per speculum, which could have been purchased for $122 each, and $900 each for a special needle that was available for $250. In one case, the medical center rented in- home hospital beds for three patients for 3 years at a total cost of $877,000. The medical center could have bought the three beds for $21,000. A review of 124 veteran patient records found problems with supplies or instruments in 74 of the cases between 2014 and 2017. One surgery was canceled after the patient was already under anesthesia because a retractor was unavailable because it had not been sterilized since its previous use a week earlier. A surgeon had to improvise when a tool used to prepare a skin graft was broken and the graft failed. A surgical staff member had to run to a private sector hospital across the street to borrow mesh to repair a hernia midprocedure.…”