Volunteer Background Check

[Berta]

As an unpaid VA volunteer I was fingerprinted and ran through the FBI-for complete background check-

it never bothered me a bit-that was in the late 1980s and since then- due to other gov jobs I had one or 2 more background checks-County job with school system etc-

and I also was again given extensive FBI background check for my daughter's Top Secret clearance- once for her military MOS and once for her federal TS position-high level security clearances these days involve checking everyone but the family cat.

I feel this is something anyone as a VA volunteer should willingly accept- a FBI background check- and the finger prints-just my personal opinion-

even as an unpaid VA volunteer I took the Oath the same day I think they ran thru my fingerprints-and also was informed right away that if I transported vets to or from the vet center my vehicle came under some VA regs-

during the transport-

many years later when I had a different volunteer job here in NY VAMC- I was told that

1. the in- patients are not allowed to ask anyone for rides out of the base-or back to the base-

and 2. in the case where I might be required to transport a vet-to or from the VAMC -I still had to remember that facet of volunteer provision as far as vehicle goes.

I never even gave any of this all a thought-until 9/11 and since then I feel that Freedom truly is not free and that maybe we do have to be willing to give up some of our privacy rights to remain free and safe.

[Berta]

Actually the FBI asked me if I had a cat---

this is funny- when they did my daughters background check for the Mil they had to contact our closest neighbors (and police, school,friends, - it was quite extensive)

our most immediate neighbors here in the boonies were very elderly people who could not remember anything and could not remember my daughter at all when the agent called them-

The day before their cousin had complained to me that he fixed their automatic garage door on Saturday and they said they would pay him Sunday but when he showed up Sunday they had both already forgot who he was and what he had fixed.

Also my daughters last name is different from mine and the FBI guy thought maybe this was part of the problem too-I gave him the names of other neighbors but he had called most of them anyhow and this was something he just needed to clear up- My cat cried to go outside as we talked and he asked me if that was a cat. I said yeah-do you need info on her too and he just laughed-but asked for the cat's name "just in case".I think he was just being funny.

They also asked the town cop and the fire department much too- as my daughter had been a junior fireman with the department and the town cop was also line fire chief who could confirm her volunteer fire experience as well as fact that she had no local problems with him.

I only wanted to reply to this because I feel there are two sides to the Watchdog story.

[Pete53]

Well I think that unless a volunteer is handling money or driving Veterans why should they have abig background check. Maybe they should try running background checks on people who work for the VA.

I got to talking to a guy who helped expedite prescriptions and it turned out he was doing community service. He was actually pretty good at it and cared about Veterans. He told me that he was guilty of tax fraud and working at VA once a week for year kept him out of jail.

[Berta]

Pete they do

"Maybe they should try running background checks on people who work for the VA." I know this because they ran Rod thru as employee and all the other employees there that I asked-

But you raise a good point-

here I was a volunteer in the PTSD combat group-with this check done but then again Swango got away without one.

Michael Swango-some may recall-put a local town of Stony Brook near me on the National News.

Stony Brook has a vast park of gorges and waterfalls-this stuff ever happened in our neck of the woods before:

He killed about 60 people-in many estimates- to include veterans

"The AMA temporarily lost track of Swango, who managed to get employed at the residency program at the Northport Veterans Administration Medical Center, affiliated with the State University of New York Medical School at Stony Brook School of Medicine. This time, Swango posed as a psychiatry resident, and once again his patients began dying for no explicable reason. Four months later, the Dean at South Dakota finally learned that Swango had moved to New York, and placed a call to the dean at Stony Brook. Swango was discharged in October. This time, the residency director learned from past mistakes and sent a warning about Swango to over 125 medical schools and over one thousand teaching hospitals across the nation"

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swango and at the Northport VAMC.

http://www.va.gov/oig/51/press2000/Swango-pr.htm

The VA charged him with murder of 3 veterans.

This whole ordeal began a better credential and background check of VA employees- but if you read the VA OIG web site cases there are still some uncredentialed and dubious people being hired at VAs.

seehttp://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:ekOGVjuLO7kJ:www.fda.gov/ora/about/enf_story/ch6/default.pdf+VA+Office+of+Investigations+false+credentials&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4&ie=UTF-8

[Guest rickb54]

I have had many security clearances due to my military service, and work in civil service as well as work with government contractors, even then I though the back ground check was invasive.

I have nothing to hide, but I would not subject myself to a back ground check just to sit on a info desk, or push a veteran down the hall. This is simply a waste of tax payer funds.

Pete we had some volunteers in Fayetteville NC (when I lived there) who were doing community service for various resons, the DAV office used to get them guys to clean out the chapter, but they really should not have been allowed to be at the VA hospital.

I think the va stands to lose a lot of volunteers over this policy.....