I receive my care from the VA, and I like
all I have met at the various VAs where I have received that treatment. Having
said that the VA needs to prosecute these people to the fullest extent
possible. I fear that ObamaCare will enable Bureaucrats the ability to break
the law (hell….Obamacare will allow these Bureaucrats to make the law) without
fear of prosecution! Just let a for-profit hospital try this and Eric Holder
would have them up on charges in no time!
Drugs, corruption go
unpunished in Mississippi VA center
7:29 PM 03/19/2014
Michael Volpe
A number of top level
managers at the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Administration Medical Center
in Jackson, Miss. remain employed in their positions or in other positions
within the Veterans Administration despite an Office of Special Counsel
report from 2013 that implicated each in
criminal wrongdoing, The Daily Caller has learned.
A 22-page letter from
Office of Special Counsel (OSC) investigator Carolyn Lerner from September
13, 2013 implicated several members in the criminal wrongdoing: Joe Battle, the
director of the Sonny Montgomery Medical Center; Dr. Kent Kirchner, the chief
operating officer; Dr. James Lockyer, the head of Primary Care; and Dorothy
White-Taylor, the former associate director of patient care. The letter,
addressed to President Barack Obama, also implicated Dr. Gregg Parker, the
chief medical officer for Veteran Integration Services Network 16, which oversees
a basket of hospitals including the Sonny Montgomery Medical Center.
The report stated that many
of the problems stemmed from the hospital’s reliance on nurse practitioners at
the expense of doctors, largely at the behest of Dorothy White-Taylor.
According to the report,
there were “numerous issues regarding patient safety, provision of services,
and certification of medical providers.” Specifically, Drs. Kirchner and
Lockyer were implicated in the report for prescribing medication to patients
they didn’t treat.
“Dr. Kirchner and Dr.
Lockyer commonly signed the form [to prescribe narcotics] as the certifying
physician even though providing patient care was never a part of their duties.”
The report also implicated
Battle and Dr. Parker for pressuring doctors at the Sonny Montgomery Medical
Center to sign a collaborative agreement with nurse practitioners (NPs), even
though the doctors weren’t in a position to supervise the NPs, and could be
subject to malpractice suits if the NPs committed a medical error. According to
the report, when some doctors resisted signing these collaborative agreements,
Battle and Dr. Parker threatened to withhold part of their paychecks.
Additionally, the report
cited a series of emails from Dorothy “Dot” Taylor-White to medical staff encouraging
doctors to sign off for narcotics prescriptions for patients seen by NPs, a
criminal act according to one of the whistleblowers, Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck.
The report further stated that Taylor’s power and clout in the hospital caused
doctors to be fearful of reporting this misdeeds.
“Dr. Hollenbeck further
stated physicians were ignored when they raised concerns about NPs practicing
as [licensed independent practitioners] LIPs, because NPs and Ms. White-Taylor
had significant power in the facility, such that physicians feared
retaliation,” the report reads.
The problems at the Sonny
Montgomery Medical Center have been the subject of two House Veteran Affairs
Committee (HVAC) hearings, in September and November
2013, along with the OSC report. Despite all this oversight, no one has been
held to account, said whistleblowers Dr. Hollenbeck and Erik Heaton, a military
veteran who served for more than 40 years.
Battle continues to be the
director of the Sonny Montgomery Medical Center. Dr. Lockyer was transferred to
the Mountain Home, Tennessee VA Medical Center, where he is currently a
physician. Dr. Parker continues to be the chief medical officer of the
region. Only Dot Taylor is no longer with the VA system.
Taylor was arrested on drug
charges in early 2012, before the events in the OSC report, only to have those
charges dropped in March 2013. Taylor was working in a managerial role at the
Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) regional office until she
retired on March 7, 2014, and her final salary was $163,574, according to VISN
16 public affairs officer Benita McClellan .
A phone call and email to
the media department at the VA wasn’t returned, and an email to VA Secretary
General Eric Shinseki was also not answered.
In the September 2013 HVAC
hearing, VISN 16 Director Rica Lewis-Payton, who oversees the Sonny Montgomery
Medical Center, defended the region and stressed that accountability was a priority.
“Be assured that we have
thoroughly investigated various allegations,” Lewis-Payton said. “We know that
a number of issues have been raised about this center, and we take those
concerns seriously. We work aggressively to identify and correct any errors,
and we are adopting a series of significant reforms to improve the center. When
appropriate to do so, we hold people accountable.”
