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| I believe in the principle of Due Process  |
The former director of the VA Medical Center in Washington D.C. has been fired after an internal investigation revealed he sent sensitive information about the hospital to his wife's personal email account. In a statement Wednesday, the VA confirmed that Brian Hawkins had been fired July 28 because he "failed to provide effective leadership at the medical center." The statement did not specify the nature of the information Hawkins sent to his wife. "This action underscores VA's commitment to holding all employees accountable if they fail to do their jobs or live up to VA's values," the statement added. VETERANS AFFAIRS CHIEF VOWS TO CLEAN UP DC FACILITY AFTER SCATHING REPORT Hawkins had been reassigned to administrative duty in April after the VA's inspector general published a scathing report that detailed unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the hospital, including 18 of 25 sterile storage areas for syringes that were found dirty. The report also noted that approximately $150 million worth of medical supplies had not been inventoried, leading to equipment shortages. In at least one instance earlier this year, the medical center ran out of bloodlines for dialysis patients and was only able to provide dialysis services because staff members borrowed bloodlines from a private hospital. The inspector general, Michael J. Missal, decried what he called "the highest levels of chaos" at the hospital, and took the rare step of announcing some of his findings before the internal probe was finished because of the risk to patients. Following publication of the April report, VA Secretary David Shulkin assigned retired Army Col. Lawrence Connell to serve as acting director of the hospital. The agency said Connell would continue in that role after Hawkins' dismissal. Link Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | ||
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For additional information concerning the Veterans Administration issues. LInk http://www.disabledveterans.org/ | |||
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VA forced to rehire the ousted former head of DC's veterans hospital http://www.foxnews.com/politic...terans-hospital.html The Department of Veterans Affairs said Wednesday it has been forced to rehire the former director of the VA Medical Center in Washington D.C. who was fired in July after an internal investigation. The department said the federal Merit Systems Protection Board on Aug. 2 ordered a stay of the VA’s firing of Brian Hawkins, who argued he was wrongly terminated. Hawkins has returned to the payroll, but now holds an administrative position at the VA headquarters rather than a patient-care position at the VA Medical Center, the department said. David Shulkin, the secretary of the VA, released a defiant statement, saying he won’t allow Hawkins to work around patients. “No judge who has never run a hospital and never cared for our nation’s veterans will force me to put an employee back in a position when he allowed the facility to pose potential safety risks to our Veterans,” Shulkin said. “Protecting our veterans is my most important responsibility.” The statement from the VA said the department would explore its next steps “armed with the new authorities recently provided by the VA Accountability Act signed into law by President Trump in June.” In a statement in July, the VA said Hawkins had been fired July 28 because he “failed to provide effective leadership at the medical center” after an internal investigation revealed he sent sensitive information about the hospital to his wife's personal email account. Hawkins had been reassigned to administrative duty in April after the VA's inspector general published a scathing report that detailed unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the hospital, including 18 of 25 sterile storage areas for syringes that were found dirty. The report also noted that approximately $150 million worth of medical supplies had not been inventoried, leading to equipment shortages. In at least one instance earlier this year, the medical center ran out of bloodlines for dialysis patients and was only able to provide dialysis services because staff members borrowed bloodlines from a private hospital. _________________________ "Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." Mark Twain | |||
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I don't have the words to express my disappointment. How in the hell does the federal employees have such protections when we "peons" have no such remedies. How did they get a union in the federal gov't? It is time for us "Peons" to demand a house cleaning at all levels of government and term limits for the bloated congress critters who have feathered their nests with all kinds of perks. Makes me sick. ****************************************************W5SCM "We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution" - Abraham Lincoln "I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go" - Abraham Lincoln | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
I tried to post the rehire story earlier. It got tripped up when I added a link, and disappeared. No telling what the trouble was. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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Striker in waiting |
Although this may seem to be a particularly infuriating example of a rule applied, that's not quite what's going on here. The Merit Systems Protection Board is a quasi-judicial arbiter of disputes mostly arising from alleged prohibited personnel practices. It's not much different than whatever internal mechanisms or agencies your state or local government has to regulate ethics laws with respect to personnel issues. Most of what they do (by volume, anyway) is hear disputes internally concerning various discrimination and other complaints based on alleged protected class violations (age, gender, race, religion, etc.). The next level of appeal would be to the court system, so it all comes out in the wash. MSPB isn't a union, either, although there are quite a few of them. AFGE and NFFE come to mind. I agree with you wholeheartedly that unionized labor has absolutely no place in government. Organizing against the interest of your employer in the public sector context is contrary to the best practices of an efficient government. That's not really the problem here, though. Without reading the MSPB filings, I can't offer an educated opinion as to the precise basis for their decision, but as you can see in the article, this guy may be collecting a check, but he's on borrowed time until the right ducks can be lined up. -Rob I predict that there will be many suggestions and statements about the law made here, and some of them will be spectacularly wrong. - jhe888 A=A | |||
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sounds like the sharps bins need cleaning. That might be a good job for the formerly fired "leader". | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower  |
It would be a real shame if he were found hanging in a tree somewhere. | |||
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| Too old to run, too mean to quit! |
Real life family experience with the VA. Youngest grandson who is medically retired from the army: Was forced to drive/travel 140 miles, each way, to get to the VA facility in Richmond. About half the time when he got there there were no doctors on duty. On occasions doctors wrote prescriptions which could not be filled due to the pharmacy not being staffed. Another occasion several "doctors" all agreed that he really needed the medication, but not a damned one of them would actually sign the form. End result, another wasted trip, and he got no relief from his spinal injury pain! Recently my wife drove him to the Richmond facility where he/she waited about 4 hours to see the doctor with whom the appointment had been made weeks earlier. I could go on and on and . . . . . Elk There has never been an occasion where a people gave up their weapons in the interest of peace that didn't end in their massacre. (Louis L'Amour) "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. " -Thomas Jefferson "America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." Alexis de Tocqueville FBHO!!! The Idaho Elk Hunter | |||
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His Royal Hiney |
That's a sad state of affairs. I remember going to the San Francisco Presidio hospital as a dependent. There was always a lot of staff there. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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In my (fortunately) few experiences with VA Hospitals I've found them to be horribly poorly run. I have generally not been able to find anyone who knew what they were doing. I've always been made to wait long enough to know that I'm not important. They always seemed to me to be a place to go and wait to die. | |||
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| Go ahead punk, make my day |
The sooner the VA gets out of medical care, the better it will be for veterans. Use all the wasted $$$ on their hospitals / staff and give vets civie health care. | |||
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Better yet, give 'em Legislative Healthcare. ========================================== Just my 2¢ ____________________________ Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right ♫♫♫ | |||
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| Made from a different mold  |
Elk, I absolutely agree about McGuire VA hospital. It's the biggest piece of poo I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with. I would bet that 98% of the employees at McGuire are EEOC/affirmative action hires. Don't even get me started with the parking situation down there. ___________________________ No thanks, I've already got a penguin. | |||
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| Cruising the Highway to Hell  |
I knew a Navy Dr when I was in that used to tell me to do everything I could to avoid any military Dr. above an O-5 or a VA Dr. His reasoning was those at O-5 or below were paying back time for Med school. Most of those above and in the VA system couldn't make it on the outside on their own. It was proven to me when I got out and the VA offered a disability only if I was willing to undergo some experimental surgery and medications. I have not been back in one since. That was 1989. “Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.” ― Ronald Reagan Retired old fart | |||
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| No double standards |
Seems the bottom line is that the fellow was derelict/incompetent, but they didn't follow proper procedures in firing him. Hopefully, after following protocol, he will still be removed. I wonder how many years he was derelict/incompetent and how much nonsense veterans had to endure because of it. "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it" - Judge Learned Hand, May 1944 | |||
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Further details on on VA suggests a more systemic problem. Here is the story: In response to a court order to stay termination of VA director Brian Hawkins, VA Secretary Shulkin fired back stating no judge can “force” him to do it. On August 2, 2017, the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) ordered a stay to prevent the termination of Hawkins pending the outcome of an investigation into wrongful termination allegations by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). VA previously fired Hawkins on July 28 for failing to properly manage his facility. The agency cited substantiated violations of confidentiality rules where IG confirmed he sent unauthorized emails to his wife. Previously, Hawkins was placed on administrative duty after IG published a scathing report into unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the facility that placed veterans lives at risk. The report also highlighted that approximately $150 million in supplies were not inventoried resulting in equipment shortages. Now, VA has been forced to put Hawkins back on the payroll. In a press release, noted below, VA vowed to push back against a court order. AN INSIDE VIEW ON WHAT IS HAPPENING One of my contacts at a different VA medical facility corroborates what Hawkins asserts in his own defense. That insider stated what happened at Phoenix VA also happened at Washington DC VA. That problem deals with VA Central Office putting veterans lives at risk by grossly underfunding each medical center. That underfunding then forces the administrator to make allocations that will always put veterans lives at risk by the nature of the underfunding. According to my contact: They fired Hawkins for trumped up email allegations because the problems in Washington were well known in VACO and if they went after him for that the big shots in VACO would have been implicated. My contact said Sharon Helman fell into this same quagmire, which led up to the wait list scandal: It was the same thing with Sharon in Phoenix. The respective VISN leadership and VACO leadership knew what the situation was in Phoenix yet failed to supply additional money or resources to assist. She continued that VACO chose to dig into Helman’s records on a witch hunt, knowing they would find something since everyone was engaged in wrongdoing of some kind, rather than prosecute on the wait time fraud to avoid a deeper investigation nationwide: So then rather than go after her for that they dug into her travel records and her acceptance of gifts. The investigation into Hawkins is allegedly the same, and one can be sure if OSC digs on this they will find something while VA faces pressure to terminate Hawkins a second time. PRESS RELEASE ON REHIRE OF VA DIRECTOR VA issued the following press release in response: On August 2, the Vice Chairman of the federal Merit Systems Protection Board ordered a stay of VA’s removal of the former director of the Washington, D.C. VA Medical Center. MSPB’s stay order requires VA to return Brian Hawkins, fired on July 28, to work pending the Office of Special Counsel’s review of Hawkins’ claim that he was wrongly terminated. VA has complied with the order and returned Hawkins to the payroll, but to an administrative position at the VA headquarters in Washington rather than to a patient-care position at the VA Medical Center. “No judge who has never run a hospital and never cared for our nation’s Veterans will force me to put an employee back in a position when he allowed the facility to pose potential safety risks to our Veterans,” said VA Secretary Dr. David J. Shulkin. “Protecting our Veterans is my most important responsibility.” The stay order came one day after the VA Office of Inspector General (VAOIG) issued a new report finding that Hawkins violated VA policy by sending sensitive VA information from his work email to unsecured private email accounts belonging to him and his wife. VA will quickly make an assessment of Mr. Hawkins’ employment using the new evidence and armed with the new authorities recently provided by the VA Accountability Act signed into law by President Trump in June. Source: https://www.stripes.com/va-for....482141#.WYvPD9PyvBU | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower |
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Doubtful... |
Now, where is that tree? Best regards, Tom I have no comment at this time. | |||
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אַרְיֵה |
Elk -- have you tried contacting your congressional representative? הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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