New Va Az Director Has "baggage"

[Berta]

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/11/28/new-southwest-va-director-arrives-baggage/19604745/

In part:

"The Department of Veterans Affairs has imported a new boss to temporarily oversee health-care operations in the Southwest one with a history of VA controversy at her permanent post in Florida, including a hidden video camera installed in a patient's room.

Kathleen Fogarty arrived this month as a fill-in at the Veterans Integrated Southwest Network, which includes the beleaguered Phoenix VA hospital."

and

"Fogarty was in charge when administrators there deployed a covert video camera in a patient's room. Korean War veteran Joseph Carnegie had previously suffered brain injury that family members blamed on negligence.

Natalie Carnegie, the patient's daughter, said she was sickened by Fogarty's leadership at the time, and stunned to learn VA Secretary Robert McDonald assigned her to a Southwest VA region beleaguered by integrity issues.

"I'm disgusted," Natalie Carnegie said in a phone interview. "To send the VA queen of cover-ups to Phoenix it's just a spit in our face.

The hidden camera in Joseph Carnegie's hospital room led to a probe last year by the VA Office of Inspector General, which concluded that no other veterans facility in the nation was using concealed cameras in patient quarters. Inspectors said family members did not give advance consent for the device, planted inside a smoke detector, and that VA administrators issued false information to the public about the incident.

Nevertheless, inspectors exonerated the Tampa medical center, asserting that the camera had reasonably been installed for patient safety." yeah right

[jcolwell]

Berta, hope your holiday was good.

This is really maddening. It is a shell game. She probably ate TH dinner at

Sharon Hellman home in phoenix to catch up on how to handle us folks in Phoenix. Or maybe they went to the Hot tub in Vegas .........just unreal.

[broncovet]

I hope not, but this looks like the same old, same old as previous secretary's. You screw up in the VA...you go direct to management.

I think its a requirement to be a VA manager to be able to "cover up" your old mistakes minimizing them.

[GuaymasJim]

These people literally have to "know where the bodies are buried." How on earth can they just jump around from facility to facility leaving dead and damaged veterans in their wake with no consequences or accountability? It just defies any normal logic!

This makes me sick at my stomach!

This VA crap will vanish from public view only if we let it vanish.

There is a very important issue in this article that we have discussed here on hadit several times over the years--recording in a VA facility. As I have often stated, I believe it is legal to record YOUR activities (appointments, exams, etc.) in a VA facility if you are in a one-party state. I do it all the time. Arizona is a one-party state. You just have to made damned sure that you don't accidentally record someone else's activities. In a two (all) party state, there may be a question about it. Here the VA has stated publicly that there is no privacy issue because it is federal property. I believe that to be complete BS, but if they want it that way GREAT because federal law is one-party. If the VA claims federal statutes trump state laws (usually the case but not always--see FTCA) to defend their use of a hidden camera, then they cannot turn around and prohibit us from doing the same thing. The VA General Counsel opinion (VAOPGCPREC 04-91) did not prohibit taping a C&P exam as many contend; it only stated that not being allowed to have an attorney present and record the C&P exam was not "adequate reason" for a veteran to refuse to be examined. A huge difference! In 1991, VA medical care and disability compensation were considered to be "gifts from a grateful nation." They are now considered to be "property" which under the protection of the 5th and 14th Amendments cannot be "taken" by the government without "due process."

"Nevertheless, the inspector general concluded that the camera was not really secret because the Carnegies detected it, and it wasn't a privacy infringement because the government owns the hospital room. No VA employee was disciplined."

"On Nov. 4, the Veterans Health Administration issued a new directive stemming from the Carnegie controversy: Covert audio and video recordings are allowed in treatment areas (patient rooms) without consent of people filmed if the taping is done to detect staff wrongdoing. However, such filming cannot be done without high-level approvals."

Here is a list of the various state laws:

http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-recording-guide/state-state-guide

Florida is a strict all-party state! Additionally, Florida specifically prohibits "hidden cameras."

"Hidden cameras: The state’s video voyeurism laws prohibit the installation of any imaging devices “to secretly view, broadcast, or record a person, without that person’s knowledge and consent” in circumstances where the person is privately exposing the body in an area where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Fla. Stat. § 810.145. The law also bans secretly videotaping underneath or through clothing without the subject’s consent. Id."

Here is the new VA publication mentioned in the article:

http://www.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=3050

With all of the nasty stuff going on, it really pleased me to read and watch this:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/11/27/family-hears-sons-heart-beat-in-vietnam-vets-chest-after-life-saving-transplant/?intcmp=latestnews

[Vync]

This old American Tourister advertisement seems to capture the essence of the VA baggage bureaucracy

[john999]

I use the VA hospital in Tampa. That deal with the hidden camera was a big deal for weeks locally. The only way to get real change at the VA is for vets to descend on the local VA's in mass and demand it. Short of that nothing much is going to change. All the congressional dog and pony shows are not going to make this system change. I am getting too old for this stuff. I have my insurance and medicare. I am taken care of so to speak. However, I would like to see Fire and Blood rain down on the VA. I hate this class system we live under with a government that craps on us. The VA is the same, essentially, as it was 40 years ago. I don't like living as a serf in the land of the 1%. If we do not stand up for ourselves we deserve what we get. When the time is right things can change in hours. We, vets, can change this system we have now. If we could survive Basic, deployments to Overseas, RVN, Iraq or Afghanistan I think we could stand up to VA thugs for a few hours. What is the worst thing that could happen besides a beating, injury, mace, jail or death? Many of us have already had that happen to us except the last part. I guess I am talking about civil disobedience and not about violence on our part. We don't even have to break the law to demonstrate our displeasure with the VA system. Just showing up at a certain time and place with some placards would shock them so bad they would call out the National Guard who should join us.

John