Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough said the national VA was slow to listen to concerns from local staff about problems at the Hampton VA during a visit to the facility Thursday.
“What I realize here at Hampton is we had to do a better job also of listening to our care teams here on the ground,” he said. “We've corrected that.”
The VA changed leadership in July because of a damning series of VA Inspector General’s reports over the past three years, which outlined problems with patient care and administration at the Hampton VA. McDonough met behind the closed doors with staff and the leadership team.
“They're concerned about the culture, and so that's why we're addressing,” he said.
Whistleblowers would also be protected, he said.
“We want our teammates here, as in every VA facility, to recognize that we want their professional expert opinion on how we lead a facility like this, and that's a situation that we're experiencing today,” McDonough said.
The national VA has not determined whether the interim team will remain at Hampton long-term, including interim executive director Walter Dannenberg, who transferred from Long Beach, Calif.
The latest Inspector General report released in July highlighted problems with discipline and documenting errors, which led to the removal of Hampton’s assistant chief of surgery. Dr. Julie Kroviak, principal deputy assistant inspector general for healthcare inspections, told WHRO at the time that the latest report was part of a pattern of mismanagement at the Hampton VA, which were highlighted in several reports, but remained uncorrected to that point.
“There were clearly multiple layers of leadership failures in responding to many of the concerns that initially started the work, and that's really what the report is about,” she said.
McDonough was at the VA hospital in Hampton to attend events for VA Suicide Awareness Month.
“Ending veteran suicide is the number one clinical priority for VA,” he said. “We still lose too many veterans to suicide. Our message in this veteran and this Suicide Prevention Month is very straightforward, and that is that suicide is preventable in VA.”
