Ed Morrissey:
Is the VA scandal over? According to Denver’s 9News and a whistleblower, not hardly. The VA hospital in Denver had earlier insisted that it never put veterans on a secret waiting list to falsify their wait times, but one employee in the sleep center — where cases of potentially life-threatening sleep apnea get diagnosed and treated — produced a secret wait list that kept hundreds of veterans from getting timely care. Now the hospital admits that they lied:
Denver VA Hospital officials reversed course Thursday, admitting their employees broke the rules when they used an improper wait list in the sleep lab in 2012. This comes just one day after the VA made a blanket denial of the existence of secret waiting lists in Denver.
9Wants to Know spent months looking into a whistleblower’s allegations regarding the sleep lab, which performs diagnostic testing for disorders – including potentially deadly sleep apnea.
“I think that putting my neck out for fellow veterans in this instance is the right thing to do,” said whistleblower Tommy Belinski. …
Belinski tells 9Wants to Know he was given a copy of a manual list containing 508 unscheduled sleep clinic patients, and he says he was instructed to transfer the names onto the VA’s official Electronic Wait List (EWL) in May 2012. Keeping a manual wait list would have been a violation of VA policy at that time, according to records 9Wants To Know obtained.
“My bosses were concerned about that,” Belinski said. “They constantly sent out things saying, ‘Hey, make sure you don’t have any paper wait lists,’ and then there were ones that were found,” he said.
The television news outlet had been pressing the Denver VA on this issue for some time — long enough for its spokesman to threaten them with a freeze-out if they didn’t quit asking about it:
Denver VA officials have repeatedly denied requests for an on-camera interview about the sleep clinic wait list. Recent emails to 9Wants To Know from hospital spokesman Dan Warvi have included the subject lines: “Your conduct is severely endangering our relationship,” and “We are declining this and all future interview requests by you.”
Warvi has also chastised 9Wants To Know for calling and writing to VA sleep-clinic employees seeking comment.
D’oh! Maybe the Denver VA should be looking for a new media mouthpiece.
The new development comes as Republicans in the Senate, now in control in the upper chamber, look to focus more attention on the VA and the inept handling of veteran care — an issue that has gone on longer than just the last six years:
Did you ever notice how whenever there is talk about waiting lists, substandard care, etc. it always centers around Veterans. Never illegal aliens, just Veterans. Do you think our politicians in D.C. have skewed priorities?
@another vet:
Good point.
A few days ago CA’s DMV was making it possible for all the illegals who wanted Drivers’ Licenses to get them in an expedited manner.
Now, news reports that legal residents are being held back for hours, days even weeks and months from their DL renewals because of all the illegals who went to the front of the line.
@another vet: What is worse is the Denver VA denies claims after a 6-15 month wait time without physically evaluating the service member. When the service member re-files or refutes the findings, the time clock starts again and again and sometimes again. So, the unemployed veteran is unable to get any funds to live on.