Va E Mails To The Oig

[Berta]

"In recent congressional testimony, acting VA Inspector General Richard Griffin adamantly denied that changes in the final report, which downplayed links between delayed care and up to 40 veteran deaths, had been "dictated" by VA headquarters.

But e-mails released Friday by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs show that Sloan Gibson, then the acting VA secretary, personally corresponded with Griffin in early August, asking him to amend the report."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/31/e-mails-va-secretary-sought-changes-in-phoenix-report/18271257/

This scandal is far from over.

[georgiapapa]

In the past few years, the OIGs in the federal government have gained a reputation of persecuting whistleblowers and failing to conduct fair and impartial investigations of the agencies they are assigned to investigate. They are nothing but another arm of the administration in power and they take their marching orders from the administration.

Despite Sloan Gibson's participation in having the OIG report amended, I do not believe his job is at risk because it appears he was taking his instructions from the Whitehouse. Sloan probably got a pay raise and given a new assignment of keeping an eye on Bob and make sure Bob doesn't do anything that might create problems for the Whitehouse. JMO

[Berta]

This is basically the same story today from a different news outlet :

In part:

"No previous OIG report has ever listed untimely care as the cause of a death, and medical experts say that would be an impossibility: Causality results from a disease or injury, and delayed care could only be a contributing factor."

The OIG has no medical rationale for that statement...I think I griped about this at a radio show we did....how stupid do they think we are.

I won FTCA /1151 on untimely care ( failure to diagnose and treat due to untimely care ) is untimely care that was contributing to or directly caused death..

http://www.13wmaz.com/story/news/health/2014/10/31/e-mails-va-secretary-sought-changes-in-phoenix-report/18273149/

But then again Griffin minced his words........I almost fell off my PC chair when I heard this at the hearing.

Anyone filing under FTCAand.or 1151 has to carefully word their claim properly,such as

"was due to the failure of the VAMC
to treat the veteran's condition, and whether that disability
was a cause of the veteran's death."

There were multiple med opinions regarding this case.

One of the opinions on this case was from our Radio Guest, Dr Bash:
" In April 2006, C.N.B., M.D., a neuro-radiologist, provided an
"Independent Medical Evaluation" in support of the
appellant's claim. In the opinion, Dr. C.N.B. states that it
is his opinion that if the veteran had received a more
accurate diagnosis and aggressive cervical decompression
surgery in 1988, he would not have had his progressive
permanent cervical myopathy, and he would have been healthier
and more able to tolerate the medical insults of his
abdominal vascular surgery in 1999 and would have likely been
a better candidate for aggressive cervical decompression of
his neck, and therefore, would have likely had fewer
respiratory and coronary complications during his last
hospitalization and would have lived longer."

Like my own situations, the veteran died after he filed under 1151 and the widow had to continue the 1151 claim:

"ORDER

Entitlement to compensation under 38 U.S.C.A. § 1151 (West
1991) for chronic granulomatous disease with cervical
myelopathy for purposes of accrued benefits is granted.

Entitlement to Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC)
under 38 U.S.C.A. § 1151 (West 1991) or (West 2002) is
granted. "

http://www.va.gov/vetapp06/Files5/0634409.txt

In my DIC award the VA admitted to "hastening" the veteran's death due to lack of timely diagnose and care.

I know the VA will try to say these Pheonix vets would have died anyway....The OGC tried to pull that BS on me. My husband was only 47 years old at death.

I only hope the survivors get good advise as to whether they have valid 1151/FTCA issues.
That advise wont come from any vet rep, they will need a lawyer.

These claims have to be carefully worded.....I put all I know on that in our FTCA/1151 forum.

My last claims were technically additional 1151 issues but because I had already been granted the FTCA/1151 wrongful deaths awards so I had to very carefully word those claims, not mentioning 1151/ or malpractice ,

and instead I filed them under the Agent Orange presumptives...AO IHD and AO DMII causing./contributing to my husband's untimely death.

They were also malpracticed conditions.

Edited November 1, 2014 by Berta

[broncovet]

Berta, I agree this scandal is not over. As I pointed out in another post, I find it interesting that VA execs (layperson's who are not qualified to make a medical dertermination such as a cause of death) have done precisely what they forbid Veterans from doing.

You see, if a Vets doc makes a statement relevant to the Vets eligibility or lack therof for service connection, the only way a Veteran can refute this is with another medical opinion. That is, the president of the US can not opine that he thinks the doc is wrong, this determination must be made by a medical professional (and not even a judge). This is why we have IMO's and IME's...to refute a doctors opinion with another doctor.

Case after case says that lay evidence can not refute the opinion of a doctor in regard to medical facts.

However, this is exactly what VA execs are doing: The docs made a determination that VA negligence (cancelled or delayed appointments) caused Veteran deaths. However, VA execs did not like that and changed it.:http://www.vetlawyers.com/morning-muster-10312014/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BergmannMoore+%28Bergmann+%26+Moore%29

Remember shreddergate? That was supposed to be "over", too, and it isnt. The VA fixed that one, in part, by promoting the VARO director in Cleveland (one of the worst RO's where much shredded evidence was found) to VACO. Now how did that fix the problem???

Edited November 1, 2014 by broncovet

[Pete53]

When someone lies they often times forget what lie they told. That is how they catch crooks.

[jbasser]

This was a big topic last month when Sean Hannity brought it up. It appears the excuse was if it the truth was told the fallout for the VA would have fatal consequences or even be deadly to the VA structure.

What really needs to happen is the VA ( ChampVA) administer a health care insurance card for veterans and pad lock all VA facilities.

The only surviving entity would be the old VBA. The real reason behind the scandals.

J