From my experience State medical boards won’t investigate complaints against VA doctors because they work for the Feds.
State officials who have been blocked in their attempts to inspect federal Veterans Affairs hospitals in Florida filed a lawsuit Thursday aimed at giving them such access as they seek to confirm allegations of substandard care.
The state Agency for Health Care Administration filed suit in a federal court in Tampa, on the same day that Acting federal VA Secretary Sloan Gibson announced the agency will release nationwide data on patient wait times next week. Gibson made the announcement Thursday during a visit to the Phoenix health care facility that was the initial focus of recent widespread complaints over veterans and wait times.
Florida health officials made several unannounced visits to inspect Florida’s six VA hospitals and other VA-operated facilities in April and May. VA officials blocked them each time. In letters to Gov. Rick Scott and the state agency’s secretary, Elizabeth Dudek, they said that federal facilities aren’t subject to state laws.
The lawsuit also says the VA has not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests.
“The VA’s refusal to permit any such inspection or respond to FOIA public records requests, in the face of an ever-growing body of consumer complaint evidence, has led AHCA to be reasonably concerned that the VA is failing the very population it is charged by Congress with protecting: America’s veterans and their families,” the lawsuit said, using the acronym for the state agency.
The VA’s public affairs office did not immediately return a telephone call or email requesting comment.
The state visited VA hospitals in West Palm Beach, Bay Pines, Miami, Lake City, Gainesville and Tampa in April and returned to the Gainesville hospital in May.
One of the plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit is Nancy Hall, who served in the Army from 1984 until 1987, when she was honorably discharged. She received VA-funded hospital care and medical services at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa.
The lawsuit states that Hall experienced “substantial” delays in receiving treatment, especially on nights and weekends. Hall’s husband, also a veteran, was diagnosed with tongue cancer and died in 2005.