Dr. Robert Petzel resigns from Department of Veterans Affairs

UPDATE
A friend reminded me that this is not really news considering it was announced last year that Petzel would retire.

Petzel to resign from VA
Rapid City Journal
September 30, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Reports from the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C. last week announced that Dr. Robert Petzel, the Under Secretary for Health for the Veterans Health Administration, will be retiring at the end of the year and a commission to seek his successor is being formed.

The press release states that the retirement was planned and notes Dr. Petzel’s “40-year career of serving veterans.”

Petzel was the director of Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 23 from October of 2002 until May of 2009, when he moved to Washington to take the position as acting Deputy Under Secretary for Health, until being appointed to his current position in 2010.

Ackerman pointed out that Petzel has recently been under scrutiny for his part of awarding a $63,000 bonus to the director of the Pittsburgh, Pa., VA hospital director shortly after a VA’s inspector general reported that the Pittsburgh VA’s response to the death of five veterans to Legionnaire’s Disease was, “plagued by persistent mismanagement.”

read more here

Recent VA News Releases
VA news releases

WASHINGTON (May 16, 2014) – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki made the following statement:

“Today, I accepted the resignation of Dr. Robert Petzel, Under Secretary for Health in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As we know from the Veteran community, most Veterans are satisfied with the quality of their VA health care, but we must do more to improve timely access to that care.

I am committed to strengthening Veterans’ trust and confidence in their VA healthcare system.

I thank Dr. Petzel for his four decades of service to Veterans.”