Families Prepare to Talk About Reality of "Candy Land" Deaths

Late vets' family members to have their say about VA care
USA TODAY
Donovan Slack
March 29, 2015

He checked him into Tomah for severe anxiety and a painkiller addiction last summer. But in late August, Jason texted him to say the medications were making him crazy. He asked his father for help. So Marv Simcakoski set up a meeting with his son, a patient advocate and his son's doctor, who consulted with Houlihan on adding another opiate to his son's regimen.

WASHINGTON — A construction contractor will relive the "most painful day" of his life when his veteran son died at a Wisconsin Veterans Affairs' center.

A widow will recount receiving bags of pills in the mail for a husband who hadn't been home for months.

A daughter will chronicle the final lucid hours of her veteran father as he waited hours for care, then slumped over limp and unresponsive.

And a pharmacist will raise questions about three more "unexplained" veteran deaths — all patients like the others who received treatment at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

All are set to testify at what promises to be an emotional congressional hearing in Tomah, Wis., Monday. It will be their first chance to publicly face VA officials overseeing the facility since news reports drew national attention to their struggles and triggered investigations by several state and federal agencies, including the VA and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Five months after Daigh declined to release his findings, 35-year-old Marine veteran Jason Simcakoski died from an overdose as an inpatient in Tomah. It was just days after Houlihan agreed that another opiate should be added to the 14 drugs he was already prescribed.

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