Gerry Connolly

Putting procedures in place is the easy part. Eradicating the culture of indifference or complacency, that's the hard part, and it will take a significant investment on the part of leadership.

The level and breadth of neglect detailed in the report is almost inconceivable and certainly callous.

Today, I am here to put the leadership on notice. Congress will not stand for continued failures that threaten the health and safety of our veterans at what ought to be the VA's flagship medical center.

A culture of complacency, but what I, frankly, would have called a culture of indifference, indifference to their patients.

Having stable leadership that exacts standards of performance, rewards good performance but also holds people accountable for bad performance can have a very salutary effect.

But I also think, when you have the kind of turnover in leadership that your facility has had, it's--it has a huge toll on productivity and morale with the work force.

We're going to develop a matrix for monitoring progress, and it's got to be a workable matrix to you and for us.

I'm under a lot of pressure. And, frankly, it may be almost an impossible task, given the numbers.

If I'm terminating someone, I got--the paperwork at least is done by HR?

H.R. is kind of key to an enterprise.

In some cases, however--I mean, for example, we had a case where I think, if I recall, the blood supply had to be destroyed because it had not properly been stored. Is that correct?

So what you've just described are sort of institutional barriers to providing quality service, and they did work-arounds to try to give that quality service the barriers within the system notwithstanding?

I thank the gentlelady. And she makes a really good point.

I thank the gentleman.

This is not just a D.C. problem; this is a United States problem, and it's something that we've got to come together on.

This is hardly an issue limited only to this facility or this region, no question about it.

I look forward to continuing to work with you on an issue that affects so many of our constituents.

This issue knows no partisan line, and we will work together as one subcommittee and with one committee to try to nudge and support, where appropriate, to make sure that the issues that we have identified and that the IG has identified are…

We need to make sure that there is a plan in place, that after all of you are gone, that the next person that comes in, that we're not having another hearing here with a tragedy that has happened because we don't have a system in place.

Men and women who put on the uniform to protect our country had every reason to believe they would receive the highest quality healthcare as a statement of our commitment to them.

Which is why I support this, Mr. Chairman.

I think there's a burden on physicians as well.

I support this, Mr. Chairman.

The death rates from and the risk of overdose--relapse and overdose from now Fentanyl is upwards 20 times higher in people who are coming out of settings like the residential treatment facilities.

We still have two-thirds of the rehab centers in this country saying otherwise, saying 'no drugs here at all.'