Page 25 - Va Has News Today

Reaction from the vavt and they have released a statement in response to your bill. it says we believe the specific whistleblower exposure and protection procedures provided by this bill would be unworkable. the decision also duplicate progras created to address claim also of improper retaliation in the workplace. whats your response to the va not supporting you on this. >> the va has fought us on every turn. if you go back to april when we exposed the wait time issue, it was whistleblowers who ...

Its our residencies that train doctors. >> did you realize that we have the largest nurse force in the nation? whos going to train the doctors and nurses if its not the va? secondly research. we send $1.8 billion a year on research. we invented the nicotine patch, the first liver transplant. the first implantable pacemaker. it was a nurse that came up with the bar code to connect patients with charts and records. clinical work research teaching. and that makes a difference for our veterans. it a...

Va, which means america needs the va. let me explain what i mean, did you realize that 70% of u.s. doctors are trained by the va? its our residencies that train doctors. >> wow. >> did you realize that we have the largest nurse force in the nation? whos going to train the doctors and nurses if its not the va? secondly, research. we send $1.8 billion a year on research. we invented the nicotine patch, the first liver transplant. the first implantable pacemaker. it was a va nurse that came up with...

Reprocessed properly and issues like this never happened between. >> we need to get jeff miller on the show. jeff from northwest florida who is the head of the veterans committee. if the va has cleaned it up thats fine but you got to make these people whole whose lives you destroyed. >> after an incident like this. some said initially they did the right thing by telling them about frontal boundary. but you cant turn them into legal adversaries. these men fought for their country and they said th...

Congress today did a check-up of the troubled va system. you know, cnn first reported how veterans were waiting months and months and months to see a doctor. the new secretary of veterans affairs told us in a committee in the last two months that va has contacted 160,000 veterans to get them off those long waiting lists and conducted 543,000 referrals for vets to be seen by private doctors. and, he says, he is reforming the scheduling system. >> were putting place a comprehensive external audit ...

You really have to dig down on this report. it comes from the office of special counsel. these are the government prosecutors who protect government inside whistleblowers and investigate whistleblowers complaints. they have sent a letter to the president this morning, basically saying, hey, weve investigated a lot of these va problems, a lot of these health problems, and weve brought these to the attention of the va. they dont agree with us. we, the special prosecutors here, believe the va is re...

The va has secretary shinseke is out. >> it comes down to executive leadership and he needs to focus on the issue and make sure that we clean house completely. >> tell me what you have seen in your time and what kind of reform you would like to see going forward. >> well, i want to say there are a lot of great men and women who work for the department of veterans affairs, many of whom are veterans themselves. it is those veterans who have been the whistle blowers, who have turned over the eviden...

Secret waiting lists, documents that disappeared. just in phoenix there were 1700 veterans waiting for appointments but never entered into the computer system. more than 1100 veterans waited an average of 200 days. now fallout. on cnn senator john mccain called for the va secretarys resignation. >> i think its time for general shinseki to move on. >> the president, briefed on the latest developments, found them deeply troubling. one white house official described shinseki as being on thin ice. s...

Do you think they have good reason to be shocked by these revelations the way theyre posing? >> yeah, i think so. you know, in 2010 in phoenix we had a waiting times -- real waiting times between one and three weeks. and its really gone south in the last three or four years. and to a level that in my 23 years weve never been this far behind. >> so it is fair analysis to say the va has had its struggles over the years but it has gotten worse and that is a recent phenomenon, in your opinion? >> in...

Phoenix va health system. mccain also goes on to ask about report that is the phoenix va health system reportedly paid out bonuses to va officials for reducing wait times even though those reductions only curred by manipulating wait lists. how many officials received bonuses, what did each official receive as a bonus? and weve just gotten a statement from the veterans affairs department here in washington responding to these allegations of misconduct at the phoenix va. it says the va has, quote:...