The VA Willingly Hires Doctors with Malpractice Claims Against Them

Back in October, USA TODAY published a piece about their investigation into allegations of medical malpractice at the VA hospital in Togus, Maine. They discovered that a podiatrist named Thomas Franchini was responsible for mistakes that harmed veterans in 88 different cases. Instead of firing Franchini outright, the VA “let him quietly resign and move on to private practice, then failed for years to disclose his past to his patients and state regulators who licensed him. He now works as a podiatrist in New York City.”

On December 3, 2017, USA TODAY published an update to their investigation. This time, the doctor under scrutiny was neurosurgeon John Henry Schneider, who “racked up more than a dozen malpractice claims and settlements in two states, including cases alleging he made surgical mistakes that left patients maimed, paralyzed or dead.” Schneider had his medical license revoked in Wyoming, and even though federal laws bar the VA from hiring anyone whose licensed has been revoked, the VA hired Schneider to work at a hospital in Iowa anyway.

This is not another “one-off.” Per USA TODAY, “A VA hospital in Oklahoma knowingly hired a psychiatrist previously sanctioned for sexual misconduct who went on to sleep with a VA patient, according to internal documents. A Louisiana VA clinic hired a psychologist with felony convictions. The VA ended up firing him after they determined he was a ‘direct threat to others’ and the VA’s mission.”

The VA isn’t reporting acts of misconduct and malpractice

At this time, there are 1,243 VA healthcare facilities addressing the needs of 9 million veterans every year. Because no one is perfect, it makes sense that some doctors will fall through the cracks, or some acts will fail to be properly recorded.

The problem with the VA, however, is systemic. The original USA TODAY investigation learned that a federal law has allowed errors by certain kinds of medical providers (including nurses and PAs) to go unreported; the law has been in place for 30 years. While VA policy requires that any investigations be reported to other government agencies, administrators are, by and large, ignoring that mandate. Even when internal investigations are reported, those reports can take years to reach the database or higher-level administrators.

Furthermore, the VA protects providers who have been fired because of mistakes and negligence. Their names are redacted from documents, and in many cases, “secret settlements” ensure that the actual wrongdoing is not set down on paper. So, even if you can see that Dr. John Smith settled a malpractice claim, you do not know what the claim was for. And though the VA policy is to tell patients when a doctor’s privileges have been revoked, that simply isn’t happening. Because they do not release the information, countless numbers of veterans could have been denied their right to file medical malpractice lawsuits because the statute of limitations has passed.

Reform must happen, and it must happen now

USA TODAY is not the only newspaper reporting on the VA’s failures. The 2007 neglect scandal that rocked Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C., reported by the Washington Post, actually warranted its own Wikipedia page. In 2013, the Post reported that the average wait time for processing a claim is 273 days. By their estimates, 53 veterans die per day because of the VA’s failures. On Veterans’ Day this year, the Washington Examiner reported that “One whistleblower at the Cincinnati VA hospital described filthy instruments with bone fragments attached,” and a VA hospital in Manchester, NH had a “fly-infested operating room and surgical instruments that were covered with rust and blood.”

No one – certainly not our veterans – should have to face conditions like this. And every patient deserves honesty and transparency when it comes to the ability of their doctors. The VA is not just failing; it is knowingly withholding information, and hiring negligent doctors – and no one can give a straight answer as to why.

It is time to reform the laws and regulations which have led to so many people being hurt, and which have led to the unnecessary deaths of veterans across the country. We must hold the VA accountable for its shortcomings, and demand that action be taken to protect those who would have willingly given their lives to protect all of us.

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