I want to thank the chair for rescheduling the hearing. My new hip is going great and I really appreciate it.

we need to create an environment where concerns are addressed at the earliest possible date.

Since then, we have been aggressively pursuing this.

Why wouldn't the Medical Director who was one of the whistleblowers have been able to convey these concerns up through the chain?

I hope that the President will appoint and the Senate will confirm the Secretary in due course and we will be able to move forward with our oversight role.

Senior leaders must be held accountable for failing to act and we must take a hard look at the organization from top to bottom to determine what is causing this lack of accountability.

We are tired of receiving reports, we are tired of inaction and, as I mentioned before, there were seven reports on the D.C. VA Medical Center.

I think in order to understand where we are and how to restructure, we need to understand where we have been.

I would vastly prefer, which is something I emphasize in just about every time I speak, that if people have concerns they speak up and that we can do something about that.

I continue to have whistleblowers come. And in the case that I have been talking about today, there was a long period of delay because the whistleblowers were concerned about their anonymity.

After it was in the Boston Globe that Secretary Shulkin showed up virtually the next day.