Political Quotes

“in the fall of 2007, at least nine veterans died at the Marion VA Medical Center as a result of the poor medical care they received. We immediately learned that a VA surgeon, who had operated on some of these veterans, was not qualified to work at the VA but slipped through the hiring process. Later, VA investigations revealed much larger problems in the management of the facility--problems that employees kept secret out of fear for losing their jobs. Today, I am reintroducing legislation to help ensure that incidents like these never take place again at Marion or another VA medical center. I asked the VA to investigate the circumstances surrounding these unfortunate deaths as soon as they came to light. The VA investigation revealed that Marion hospital management knew that doctors, including the surgeon at issue, were not properly credentialed but failed to act. The surgeon remained employed at the Marion hospital and practiced there for more than a year. Had he not been hired to work at Marion, many of his patients may have survived their surgeries. The VA investigation revealed additional quality of care issues at the Marion hospital. Management disregarded VA quality care directives in the face of serious patient incident reports and surgical data collected to ensure quality of care. They ignored or failed to recognize warning signs that there were problems in the surgical program.”