South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs bosses told whistler blower to "pull up (her) big girl panties"

Woman alleges retaliation for whistleblowing on S.D. Department of Veterans Affairs

Sioux Falls Argus Leader
Lisa Kaczke
Dec. 16, 2019

In 2016 and July through October 2017, the defendants asked her to overlook "forgery issues" on Veterans Affairs forms completed by state Department of Veterans Affairs employees. Supervisors in the state department told Davidson to "pull up (her) big girl panties," which she believed was an offensive comment that was related to offensive statements she heard and reported at a state Department of Veterans Affairs conference in Pierre in May 2016.

A Mitchell woman is alleging she was fired as a county veteran service officer in retaliation for whistleblowing on forgery and reporting sexual harassment in the South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jessica Davidson filed the lawsuit last week in the First Circuit Court against the state of South Dakota, the South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs, Davison County, the Davison County Commission and Davison County Commissioners Brenda Bode and Dennis Kiner.

She is alleging in the lawsuit that the defendants violated her Title VII civil rights, her 14th Amendment and First Amendment rights, and her rights under the South Dakota whistleblower law.

The defendants haven't yet filed a response to Davidson's lawsuit complaint.

Davidson also filed two complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which issued a letter in September 2019 stating she had a right to sue.

According to her lawsuit complaint:

Davidson, a U.S. Army veteran, was hired as the first female Davison County veteran service officer in December 2014 at a rate of pay that was $2.47 less per hour than her male predecessors. She was formally appointed to a four-year term as VSO in December 2015.

In August 2016, she was found to "exceed expectations" in all 14 performance factors on a job evaluation by the state Department of Veterans Affairs.
read it here

Doctors Warn Manchester VA is Endangering Patients

UPDATE
Stars and Stripes July 17. 2017
"WASHINGTON — The director and chief of staff of the VA hospital in Manchester, N.H., have been removed from their posts following a news report of dirty conditions, long patient wait times and substandard care, Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announced Sunday."

At a four-star veterans’ hospital: Care gets ‘worse and worse’
Boston Globe
By Jonathan Saltzman and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
July 15, 2017

So far, 11 physicians and medical employees — including the hospital’s retiring chief of medicine, former chief of surgery, and former chief of radiology — have contacted a federal whistle-blower agency and the Globe Spotlight Team to say the Manchester VA is endangering patients.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — This is what the US Department of Veterans Affairs says a four-star hospital looks like:

One operating room has been abandoned since last October because exterminators couldn’t get rid of the flies. Doctors had to cancel surgeries in another OR last month after they discovered what appeared to be rust or blood on two sets of surgical instruments that were supposedly sterile.

Thousands of patients, including some with life-threatening conditions, struggle to get any care at all because the program for setting up appointments with outside specialists has broken down. One man still hadn’t gotten an appointment to see an oncologist this spring, more than four weeks after a diagnosis of lung cancer, according to a hospital document obtained by the Globe.

Remarkably, leaders of the Manchester VA have confirmed many of the problems, from the fly-infested operating room — “an episodic issue,” said one administrator — to thousands of patients waiting indefinitely for specialist care, which the leaders blamed on the private company hired by the federal government to set up veterans’ appointments outside the hospital. read more here

But as Congress has a habit of doing, they just talk about fixing the VA. When you read this part, be prepared to grab your head first. It will explode like mine did!

“They ignored him basically for 20 years and allowed this thing to grow and grow and grow,” said Abramson, who recently wrote the VA in Manchester and in Boston that his client intends to sue for negligence.

And as for the VA, this is the statement that came into my email.

VA Announces Immediate Actions at Manchester VA Medical Center
07/16/2017 04:55 PM EDT


WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin, M.D., announced actions the department is taking immediately to respond to whistleblower concerns at the Manchester, New Hampshire, VA Medical Center (VAMC) detailed in an article in today’s Boston Globe.

The VA Office of the Medical Inspector and the VA Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection are being sent in beginning Monday to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the Manchester VAMC, including all allegations in the article.

In addition, effective immediately, the department has removed the director and chief of staff at the facility, pending the outcome of the review.

Alfred Montoya, the director of the VAMC in White River Junction, Vermont, will serve as the new director of the Manchester VAMC and the new chief of staff will be announced shortly.

Dr. Shulkin said, “These are serious allegations, and we want our Veterans and our staff to have confidence in the care we’re providing. I have been clear about the importance of transparency, accountability and rapidly fixing any and all problems brought to our attention, and we will do so immediately with these allegations.”

Veteran's Body Left in Shower Room After He Died?

10Investigates: Veteran's body forgotten about
WTSP
Noah Pransky
November 29, 2016

PINELLAS COUNTY, Florida – 10Investigates discovered a scandal – and attempted cover-up – at the Bay Pines VA Medical Center has cast a shadow over the facility’s otherwise reputable hospice unit.

A whistleblower tipped 10Investigates off to a Feb. 16, 2016 incident where an elderly veteran passed away, then forgotten about for nearly 10 hours in a shower room after his body was prepared for the morgue. According to an agency review, employees then lied and falsely documented the process to cover-up the mistakes.

The report, which was heavily-redacted by the VA, concluded “negligence” and a “lack of respect” for the deceased veteran.

“We honor America’s veterans,” said Bay Pines spokesperson Jason Dangle. Dangle is also a retired veteran. “We view this finding unacceptable and have taken appropriate actions to mitigate and correct the issue."

Dangle confirmed discipline for the employees involved, but the VA redacted all names and specifics as well for “privacy” reasons. So the public will never know where those employees might resurface.
read more here

VA Whistleblowers:67 Claim Retaliation From Supervisors

Government watchdog says 67 VA whistleblowers report retaliation by supervisors
Associated Press
Matthew Daly
July 8, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal investigative agency is examining 67 claims of retaliation by supervisors at the Department of Veterans Affairs against employees who filed whistleblower complaints — including 25 complaints filed since June 1, after a growing health care scandal involving long patient waits and falsified records at VA hospitals and clinics became public.

The independent Office of Special Counsel said 30 of the complaints about retaliation have passed the initial review stage and were being further investigated for corrective action and possible discipline against VA supervisors and other executives. The complaints were filed in 28 states at 45 separate facilities, Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner said.

Lerner provided the figures in testimony prepared for a Tuesday night hearing before the House Veterans Affairs Committee. The Associated Press obtained copies of her testimony and other witnesses in advance.

Lerner said her office has been able to block disciplinary actions against several VA employees who reported wrongdoing, including one who reported a possible crime at a VA facility in New York.

The counsel's office also reversed a suspension for a VA employee in Hawaii who reported seeing an elderly patient being improperly restrained in a wheelchair. The whistleblower was granted full back pay and an unspecified monetary award and the official who retaliated against the worker was suspended, Lerner said.
read more here

VA whistleblowers claim illegal retaliation

VA whistleblowers claim illegal retaliation, federal agency investigates
Complaints come from 28 locations in 18 states and Puerto Rico
UPI
By Matt Bradwell
June 6, 2014

WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) --A federal agency is investigating claims that Veterans Affairs officials illegally retaliated against 37 whistleblowers who exposed the wait-time scandal that led to former-Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation.

According to the Office of Special Counsel, a federal investigation agency primarily tasked with protecting government whistleblowers, it has received complaints from VA employees in 28 locations in 18 states claiming managers are taking administrative action against employees who exposed poor record-keeping and patient management at VA hospitals.

"The frequency with which VA employees are filing these complaints is one of the highest levels in the federal government," said OSC spokesman Nick Schwellenbach.

Employees complained of being demoted, placed on suspension and hostile working conditions.

"In one case, the OSC requested and obtained a stay of a proposed 30-day suspension without pay for a VA employee who reported the inappropriate and continuous use of patient restraints in violation of VA rules and procedures," alleges the OSC.
read more here

Former VA Employee claims retaliation over doing the right thing

A veteran reached out and wanted his story told. I have no means to verify his story so I told him he could do a guest post and I would post it.

If you are a reporter, I can put you in touch with him. If his story is true, then it means there is a lot more going on with our veterans than we knew about.

Guest Post
Former VA Employee claims retaliation over doing the right thing
A Veteran and former Veterans Affairs employee turned whistleblower filed a complaint of retaliation and reprisal with the Office of Special Counsel against VA Officials at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.

The former employee and whistleblower named Oliver Mitchell was employed at the nations largest VA Medical Center in the Radiology department. In light of recent news regarding the Veterans Affairs Mr. Mitchell alleges officials are retaliating against him for his whistleblower complaint filed in March 2009. In that complaint the whistleblower alleges management officials instructed him to delete a 10 year backlog of orders and service request for the Radiology Imaging Department.

The whistleblower states he refused that order and was subjected to harassment and retaliation. Additionally, the complaint alleges VA Officials retaliated against Mr. Mitchell after he reported another VA employee who threatened to shoot Mr. Mitchell on VA grounds citing “he was a threat to management.” Mr. Mitchell says that after he reported the incidents to hospital administrators the Chief of Staff began ordering psychiatric evaluations of the veteran. Mr. Mitchell states that in an effort to silence him management officials tried to coerce him to have his tonsils removed. As a result, the whistleblower says he was prompted to file a HIPPA complaint alleging retaliation and manipulation of his VA healthcare services.

Ultimately, Mr. Mitchell was forced to resign in March 2011. The veteran says that in the 2 years since his resignation the agency has continued to discriminate against him. He has filed several complaints for retaliation based on his prior EEO and Whistleblower activity. In his new complaint, Mitchell states on March 4, 2013 a VA Official told him the Los Angeles VA was making him a target. As such the whistleblower says he believed the comment to be a threat and combined with some recent events that had occurred in Mobile, Alabama he felt his life was in danger, prompting the new complaint to Special Counsel.

Additionally, the whistleblower alleges that on April 4, 2013 the same VA Official stated “management officials at the Los Angeles VA Medical Center were set out to destroy, ruin and hurt the veteran because of his 2009 complaint. The official continued saying, she didn’t feel this would ever end, they are doing things to draw you back in.” The veteran says that since his resignation he’s had little to no contact with the VA and he cant understand why officials are still targeting and retaliating against him. At the time of this story Mr. Mitchell told The Bronx Times that within the last year he has received several death threats to include having his home broken into while in Alabama. He continued, saying the retaliation did not escalate until November 2011 when a VA employee began questioning him about his complaints. He said despite being fearful for his life he has reached out to VA Officials in DC to address the situation.

This same story is posted at Bronx Times.

Also I invite you to see my blog at veteranwhistleblower.blogspot.com. These people are really trying to kill me by any means necessary.

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses

Dr. Steven S. Coughlin talked about many issues our veterans face including suicide and the lack of proper care. This is what they come home to. This is what some of us already assumed but now with his testimony, we know how much worse it all really is.

Taking care of our veterans and giving them the best possible treatment is not a political thing but it is the right thing. Remember what Washington said and ask yourself if we are even coming close to living up to it.

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, is directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated" -- George Washington

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses
Epidemiologist says VA hid and manipulated data regarding burn pits and Gulf War syndrome
American Conservative
By KELLEY VLAHOS
May 10, 2013

It’s not every day that a scientist creates such intense drama on Capitol Hill.

But Dr. Steven S. Coughlin’s charges that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials hid, manipulated, and even lied about research pertaining to Gulf War Illness (GWI) and health problems plaguing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are still causing fallout a month after his stunning testimony before a key House subcommittee.

“The implications of his testimony are profound,” declared Anthony Hardie, 45, a Gulf War veteran who serves on the congressionally appointed Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC).

Veterans and their advocates, as well as many in the scientific community, have long believed that the VA avoids responsibility for veterans’ care by downplaying or outright ignoring evidence linking wartime experiences—such as exposure to Agent Orange, chemical weapons, or toxic pollution—to veterans’ chronic medical issues back home.

Coughlin, a senior epidemiologist with the VA’s Office of Public Health (OPH), gave the VA’s critics what they say is a smoking gun: after conducting major surveys of 1991 Gulf War veterans and “New Generation” veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan, Coughlin told the committee he quit his post in December. He claims the VA is hiding important survey results about the health of veterans and that his colleagues watered-down analysis that might have shed light on whether recent vets got sick from open-air trash-burning pits on overseas bases.
read more here

Why are officials avoiding those who manipulated VA data?

VA Silent on Exec Bonuses for Manipulated Data
Apr 23, 2013
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan

A year after testifying that some executives received bonuses by manipulating appointment data for veterans needing mental health care, a former Department of Veterans Affairs hospital administrator said officials have avoided the issue “like the plague.”

“They avoid it with a 10-foot pole,” Nicholas Tolentino told Military.com in a telephone interview Monday.

Last April, Tolentino, a former mental health administrator at the Manchester VA Medical Center in New Hampshire, told lawmakers that VA hospital officials across the country talked to each other to find workarounds to meet VA appointment goals. The overriding objective, “from top management on down, was to meet our numbers” and make it appear as if the VA was seeing as many veterans as possible, he said.

Meeting those goals was linked to bonuses for executive career employees, he said. This created “a perverse administrative incentive” for officials to exploit loopholes to meet manufactured goals without providing the services.

“The upshot of these all too widespread practices is that meeting a performance target, rather than meeting the needs of the veteran, becomes the overriding priority in providing care,” he testified.

Tolentino told the Senate that VA officials from across the country discussed ways to get around the system.

“That’s one of the reasons I left,” he said. “Not only because of the fraud. They were gaming the entire system and profiting off it. I left before I got a bonus. I didn’t feel right taking [one].”
read more here

American Legion reacts to allegations by VA whistleblower

American Legion reacts to allegations by VA whistleblower
By American Legion
Published: Thursday, Mar. 14, 2013
WASHINGTON

The leader of the nation's largest wartime veterans service organization is expressing "great concern" over allegations that the Department of Veterans Affairs has grossly mishandled the care of Gulf War Illness patients.

In testimony this week before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, several witnesses claimed that VA has consistently failed to treat the multi-symptomatic disease known as Gulf War Illness (GWI) or Gulf War Syndrome properly. Further, VA is accused of suppressing evidence of links between GWI and environmental hazards to which service members were exposed in southwest Asia.

The latter charge came from Dr. Steven Coughlin, a former senior epidemiologist at the VA's Office of Public Health. He ended his four year career with VA last December by resigning "because of serious ethical concerns."

"If the studies produce results that do not support Office of Public Health's unwritten policy, they do not release them," Coughlin told subcommittee members on Mar. 13.
read more here
VA whistleblower slams what research results leads to

Whistleblower VA doctors lost jobs after news report

Fact Finder: Union Says V.A. Retaliated Against Whistleblowers
KRNV
Reported by: Joe Hart

Doctors Ralph Coppola and Vidur Mahadeva both worked at the Reno V.A. Hospital, unitl last month. Coppola as an E-N-T surgeon, Mahadeva in the emergency room.

Both doctors, who worked part time, recently received the exact same letter, telling them they'd been terminated.

The letter did not give a reason.

"The letter of termination was 2 days after your report was on TV," Coppola told News 4.

The letters to Doctors Coppola and Mahadeva were each dated September 13th: two days after News 4's Fact Finder report aired uncovering the results of an investigation conducted at the V.A. Hospital by the Office of the Medical Inspector. The O.M.I. report produced 53 recommendations to improve patient care at the V.A.

Both Coppola and Mahadeva met with O.M.I. representives during their investigation to voice their concerns about staffing, patient care timelines and other quality of care issues at the V.A. Hospital.

"Both of us tried to offer constructive cricitism and were under the impression we were helping our vets at the time. Both of us lost our jobs soon thereafter," said Dr. Mahadeva.

Jeanine Swygman is the vice president of the union which represents Doctors Coppola and Mahadeva. She says its clear the firings were retaliation by the V.A.

"Absolutely. The timing was two days after your story aired on the O.M.I. Report," said Swygman.
read more here

Shoot the Messenger - VA Tries to Fire Doctor-Turned-Whistleblower in Texas

"I had a chance to help 40,000 veterans with brain injury," Van Boven said. "I felt this was a gift and a blessing to help those who have served and suffered, and I am well trained to do it. ... I don't want these soldiers to become the next generation of homeless veterans."

Nov 1: Shoot the Messenger - VA Tries to Fire Doctor-Turned-Whistleblower in Texas

Laurel Chesky
Austin Chronicle (Texas)

Nov 01, 2008
October 31, 2008 - It all began with such promise. The Brain Imaging and Recovery Laboratory, launched in January, would hunt for treatments for what has become the Iraq war's signature ailment: traumatic brain injury. A program of the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, BIRL was housed at the University of Texas' J.J. Pickle Research Campus, where VA researchers had access to UT's $2.7 million brain scanner to help diagnose invisible head injuries.

But now, BIRL's research has ceased, and the program's director, neurologist Dr. Robert Van Boven, has been suspended from duty with pay since September, while the VA decides what to do with him. On Oct. 15, the VA held a closed hearing to determine whether or not to terminate Van Boven's employment. A board presiding over the hearing is expected to make a recommendation to Thomas Smith, the director of the Central Texas system, within a few weeks.

Van Boven is a compact, tightly wound man. Fast-talking and brimming with energy, he could serve as poster boy for the type A personality. His educational and professional feats match his tireless demeanor. Van Boven earned a doctorate in dental surgery from the University of Illinois and an M.D. from the University of Missouri. He completed two neurology residencies, at Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and at Northwestern University. He has worked as a clinician at the National Institutes of Health and as an associate professor at Chicago Medical School and Louisiana State University.

go here for more
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/11541