VA

In California, a Department of Veterans Affairs inpatient pharmacy supervisor was placed on administrative leave and ordered not to speak out after protesting what he described as errors and delays in the delivery of medications to patients. In Pennsylvania, a former VA doctor was removed from clinical work and forced to spend his days in an office with nothing to do, he told the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). This action occurred after he complained that, in medical emergencies, physicians who were supposed to be on call were failing or refusing to report to the hospital. In Appalachia, a former VA nurse was bullied by management and forced out of her job after complaining that patients with serious injuries were being neglected, she told POGO. “Such an upsetting thing for a nurse just to see this blatant neglect occur almost on a daily basis. It was not only overlooked but appeared to be embraced,” she said. “There’s a culture of bullying employees….It’s just a culture of harassment that goes on if you report wrongdoing,” she said. These people are among the hundreds who contacted POGO over the past several weeks after we joined forces with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) to seek inside perspectives on the Department of Veterans Affairs. Together, we and IAVA created the website VAOversight.org and asked people within the VA system to share their stories.