| Yesterday, VoteVets--along with CREW--released an email sent by a VA hospital PTSD coordinator that suggested financial concerns were more important to the VA than ensuring that combat veterans were properly diagnosed as either having or not having post-traumatic stress disorder. At the same time, CREW filed a Freedom of Information Act request to determine if this problem is widespread. The story has since been covered by the AP, CBS News, the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, MSNBC, and the Military Times.
In response, VA Secretary James Peake had this to say:
VA Secretary James Peake acknowledged in a statement that the e-mail did come from a VA facility, but said it's not official policy.
"A single staff member, out of VA's 230,000 employees, in a single medical facility sent a single e-mail with suggestions that are inappropriate and have been repudiated at the highest level of our health-care organization," he said. "The employee has been counseled and is extremely apologetic."
You'll have to forgive me for not giving Secretary Peake the benefit of the doubt on this one. I'm sorry, but we've just been burned by Bush political appointees too many times. First off, it seems that the VA has an email problem--or, rather, the VA has potentially systemic problems that are being revealed by some of the many caring and conscientious VA employees through the process of leaking emails.
Secondly, after the Abu Ghraib fiasco, I will always be skeptical of high-level Bush appointees who claim that the "discovered" issue is an isolated incident committed by an improperly trained "rogue" employee.
Let's look at the VA's email situation first:
Just three and a half weeks ago, CBS News released an email written by the VA's Head of Mental Health, Dr. Ira Katz. The email contained Katz's attempt to cover up the exploding suicide epidemic among veterans. CBS described the email this way:
And it appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers.
First, he titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request."
He opened it with "Shh!" - as in keep it quiet - before ending with "Is this something we should (carefully) address ... before someone stumbles on it?"
Here's a copy of the email in question. You can clearly see the "Shh!"
After it was revealed in April, Dr. Katz testified before the House Veterans Affairs Committee, at which time he explained of the email:
"That was very unfortunate," Katz said. "It was an error. I apologize for that."
During the same hearing, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) tore into both Katz and VA Secretary James Peake, exclaiming with regard to the VA:
"What we see is a pattern -- deny, deny, deny." Filner said.
After that hearing, Secretary Peake backed up Katz when pressed by reporters as to whether or not he would demand Katz's resignation:
"I do not have any intention of relieving Dr. Katz," Peake said.
"So Dr. Katz stays?" asked Keteyian.
"That's my plan, absolutely," Peake answered.
Peake said the plan now is to sweep aside any talk of a cover-up and tell Congress and the American public the truth about veteran suicides.
About the same time as that hearing--perhaps even on the same day--I received the "adjustment disorder email" that we eventually publicized yesterday. That email, written by a VA hospital PTSD coordinator, was also wildly inappropriate:
"Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I'd like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O [rule out] PTSD," the e-mail said.
It also said, "Additionally, we really don't or have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD."
Here's the actual email:
Now with two potentially damning emails written within six weeks of each other, Secretary Peake stated again that there were no systemic problems in the Department of Veterans Affairs with regard to suicide and PTSD diagnosis.
The problem from an outside perspective, however, is this: If we're seeing these two emails, what are we not seeing? How many of these things are out there? Is another one going to pop up next week?
This is why we're doing the FOIA request, and this is why I don't give Secretary Peake the benefit of the doubt when he says:
"A single staff member, out of VA's 230,000 employees, in a single medical facility sent a single e-mail with suggestions that are inappropriate and have been repudiated at the highest level of our health-care organization."
Given Chairman Filner's accusation of "Deny, deny, deny," I'm particularly concerned with the tone of Secretary Peake's rebuttal yesterday. It reeks of Abu Ghraib. It's the type of statement that seems to lay all the blame on a single "bad apple"--while denying that the organization (including its senior leadership) had anything to do with the decision. This may turn out to be true, but I stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to those in this administration long ago. Abu Ghraib is a prime example of why to be skeptical when the higher-ups start blaming lower-level employees for seemingly major decisions.
The bottom line is this: I do not relish having to excoriate public servants like this. I don't know Secretary Peake, Dr. Katz, or the VA hospital PTSD coordinator personally, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if those who knew them said they were great people. But too much is at stake here. I'm sorry. There just is. And when I feel like my fellow brothers and sisters in arms are at an increased risk due to institutional or Bush administration negligence, then I will do whatever it takes to mitigate that risk.
We're tired of being shat upon by the incompetent Bush administration and a largely apathetic public.
If these two emails are indeed isolated, then the VA should have no problem releasing all the information it has so that we can put this issue of veterans care to rest. |
