Three confirmed dead because of delayed care at Augusta VA

UPDATE
Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center brought in help to complete 5,100 unresolved consults
By Wesley Brown
Staff Writer
Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013

Health care administrators at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center said Thursday that the hospital botched its gastrointestinal program so badly that it had to re-engineer its floor plan and bring in extra personnel and equipment to handle a consultation case­load that topped 5,100 unresolved diagnostic screenings last year.

The large-scale effort, which was launched in August 2012 and completed three months later, helped the facility determine appropriate treatment plans for 4,560 patients and reduce its backlog to 540 unresolved consults, Director Bob Hamilton said.

He attributed some of the problem to the Department of Veterans Affairs shifting its policies in 2011 to offer more screening colonoscopies. As a result, Charlie Norwood was soon flooded with colonoscopy requests and did not have the resources or procedures in place to handle the caseload.
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Three confirmed dead because of delayed care at Augusta VA
Augusta Chronicle
By Wesley Brown
Staff Writer
Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013

The Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta confirmed Wednesday that three of its cancer patients died needlessly in the past two years because of long waits and delayed care in the hospital’s gastrointestinal program.

The hospital declined to release the names of the victims; however, the deaths have reportedly been tied to the medical center’s former director, Rebecca Wiley.

During her time in Augusta from February 2007 to December 2010, Wiley’s mismanagement of staff and medical procedures led to five patients sustaining injury or death and more than 4,500 gastrointestinal endoscopy consults going unresolved, according to a 2012 report from the VA Inspector General’s Office.
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