He exposed the gravy train. More money is not the solution, way past time for a top to bottom purge.
For 24 years, Navy Cmdr. Jeff Hawker served his country, leaving active duty to continue treating his military brethren as a Department of Veterans Affairs doctor. Once he started working at the Salem VA Medical Center, though, he said it took just a few months for officials at the medical center to oust him and to destroy his career after he reported dangerous medical practices.
“You serve and you come back and you run into the corruption and malpractice” of the VA , he said.
At a time when the VA is scrambling to hire doctors to make up for a critical shortfall, Hawker said he was the victim of a so-called “sham peer review,” a problem many say is widespread in the VA and little reported because the victims fear bringing attention to their negative reviews.[…]
A Stars and Stripes review of documents related to Hawker’s case shows discrepancies in his treatment by the hospital.
Seven months after revelations of data falsification and secret wait lists revealed a nationwide crisis in veterans’ health care, most of the officials linked to the scandal are still on the payroll, and fresh reports of malfeasance continue to surface.
Miguel LaPuz, director of the Salem VA Medical Center, strongly denies Hawker’s claims of mistreatment and dangerous health care practices.
“Do we subscribe to making sure the veterans receive good care or excellent care?” he said. “Yes we do.”
Hawker, who has been unemployed since January, filed a whistleblower protection complaint with the Office of Special Counsel claiming wrongful termination and asking for resinstatement as a VA physician. He said he will wait for that process to play out before deciding whether to file a lawsuit.[…]
In April 2013, Hawker started work at the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The center and its five satellite clinics serve more than 110,000 veterans in a 26-county area of southwestern Virginia.
The trouble started almost immediately, Hawker said. When co-workers noticed he was putting in long hours, Hawker said they told him several times that he was upsetting contract doctors paid to pick up hours not covered by the staff.
Hawker didn’t heed the warnings.
He said he also noticed unsafe practices in the hospital, one of the most egregious being a mismanagement of a patient who appeared to be having a stroke. When the patient began exhibiting signs of a stroke, a senior doctor did nothing, putting the patient’s life at risk, Hawker said. The patient lived, but Hawker was disturbed and said he began lodging his concerns with colleagues and superiors.