‘Remedial’ Training At Phoenix VA Slap In The Face Of Dead Veterans Families

Phoenix VA

Benjamin KrauseReports have surfaced that Phoenix VA, the catalyst in the VA scheduling scandal, has failed to address the criminal behavior by failing to impose real solutions.

“Everybody with access to scheduling was ordered to do remedial online training [sic],” said Corriell Brotherwood, a former VA employee and disabled veteran. According to Brotherwood, during the brief online training and test that followed, the “supervisor simply handed out the answers… like candy.”

Shortly after the “remedial” training, Brotherwood lost his job. He reached out to me to help expose this slap in the face of all the families who lost loved ones at the facility. “It is a slap in the face,” he said, “Until someone starts looking into [human resources] and the hiring and firing practices, the bullying, and cronyism, nothing will change.”

At this point I have one question. Can our leaders hold VA accountable for its persistent incompetence and perpetually corrupt culture?

Brotherwood confirmed earlier CNN reports that top administrators at Phoenix VA have spent years punishing honest people while keeping their own cronies in positions of authority to reinforce the illegal behavior. He believes dozens of crooked cronies are still in positions of authority at that facility.

To fix it, Brotherwood thinks VA needs to clean house, “People need to be fired [but] until that happens nothing will change.” His report is a clear sign that VA is not taking the deaths of veterans and resultant criminal investigations seriously.

But just who can veterans rely on to clean that house? Certainly not VA executives like Under Secretary Allison Hickey who seemed well pleased to remain diluted with falsified statistics and shredded patient files during the Congressional hearing last Monday.

In April, Americans across the country were outraged when news broke that VA was manipulating appointment scheduling at the Phoenix VA that resulted in many veterans dying while waiting for needed health care. VA executives promised to root out the bad actors but were fired before having a chance to take action.

Shortly after the call to firing circulated through the media, later reports surfaced that no one had lost their job at Phoenix VA despite the clear criminal behavior. The veteran population and families impacted will need to push hard to ensure real accountability.

As for Brotherwood, he plans to use his disability benefits to gain needed retraining through VA Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment. Let’s hope the VA benefits program treats him better than how the health care system treated sick and dying veterans seeking health care.

 

Similar Posts

20 Comments

  1. REMEMBER THE ALAMO!

    From the Examiner:

    “Texas military veterans seemed to be especially “punished” because of White House policies regarding illegal immigration and the current crisis on the U.S. and Mexico border. Over 19,000 military veterans are out of work in Texas and a growing number of citizens are becoming more frustrated with the lack of support from the Federal government.”

    What say you of the thousands of unemployed Lone Star veterans?

  2. There was a VAOIG report I read yesterday for the Baltimore Regional Office. In it a supervisor is accused AND found to have diverted and pigeon holed tens of thousands of veterans’ correspondence regarding their claims. In the reports conclusion there is a number of recommendations – nothing about any disciplinary action – only, this poor soul (who has probably screwed up thousands of veterans claims) needs some more training. His bosses also go Scott free. As has been said so many times, unless and until these morons can be fired for incompetence, malfeasance or illegal actions, the VA will never change.

  3. Stop voting for the politicians that cause the VA scandals and I will stop my factual assertions of who is at fault.

  4. Ron, I must have touched a raw nerve again with you because you are obviously being deceitful to the other people who read Ben’s blog here.

    A quick glance at my posting history here clearly demonstrates my absolute disgust for the VA.

    https://encrypted.google.com/#q=%22disabledveterans.org%22+%2B%22american+veteran%22

    Knowing that Ron is being untruthful, one needs to ask why Ron is deliberately trying to muddy the water of my comments against the main source of the current VA scandals, Obama himself.

    Any takers?

  5. American Veteran seems to be infiltrating this group for his own political agenda…how can you allow this bullshit to taint the immediate and urgent subject of us veterans trials and tribulations? Maybe it isn’t worth even trying with the like of the political bullshit you allow here
    Fucking Assholes, I swear. This is why the VETERANS cause goes nowhere!

  6. This is exactly why the VETERANS need to be able to hold these assholes at the VA accountability for they’re illegal actions upon individual VETERANS by allowing us to take these assholes to court and Sue them. The Congress and Senate have never and will never put enough effort to assist VETERANS. The only reason any of the recent bullshit came to light is because the American taxpayers got wind of it. What they do is appease the taxpayers with lies and continue fucking us after the attention is gone. SOS different decade!

  7. When VA Big Shot “Administrators” are caught red handed doing illegal stuff, two groups always get punished for it, all vets who use VA and all lower ranking VA employees, who did nothing wrong. This is the same old VA bull shit, and any Congressman who doesn’t speak out is either complicit or stupid as a sack of rocks.

  8. According to at least one whistleblower, the ONLY solution is to give ALL enrolled veterans unfettered access to non-VA health care with VA to pay the bill. If all such veterans have a clear choice, then the VHA will be incentivized to make itself attractive to veterans by improving the quantity and quality of the care it provides. Of course, all such veterans with other health-care insurance coverage (such as Medicare, Tricare, Employer-provided plans, etc.) should have those plans act as the first payer splitting the bill with VA, Also, to level the playing field to make it easier for the VA to compete, the VA should be allowed to bill those same carriers for care provided to their beneficiaries.

  9. Hey, Ben, when are you going to put the spotlight on the mass influx of illegal aliens who are invading our southern borders right now to steal money from us disabled veterans?

    Instead of helping homeless disabled veterans stuck living in an alley dumpster off of Main Street, Obama and his liberal minions are asking taxpaying military veterans and their supporters to instead pay at a minimum $4 billion to feed and shelter these newly arrived illegal invaders.

    These illegal aliens are lawless criminals who have invaded our country and are now seeking to take advantage of our broke military veteran middle class who struggle every day to put food on the table for their children.

    You are smart attorney.

    You know this is a zero sum game where illegal aliens are now getting the bigger piece of the cake, but at the expense of us disabled veterans getting the smaller piece.

    You have to know how much the disabled veterans of America are now suffering even more under the Obama bureaucracy.

    It is an unconscionable position to take, of being silent, of not reporting the tremendous harm that us disabled veterans across America are currently experiencing of the loss of entitlement benefits that are now instead going to non-American illegal invaders.

    It is disabled veterans that deserve our limited resources, not lawless criminals, who choose to come here illegally to exploit the benefits earned by the sacrifices that so many of our wounded brothers and sisters made in service to this great nation!

    If disabled veterans are to have a chance against the corrupt VA, then we must educate people about how Obama has deliberately knocked out one of the legs of the financial platform that is supporting us disabled veterans.

    We, disabled veterans, are now curled up on the ground in a defensive posture trying to weather the cruel and malicious blows that Obama and his liberal supporters are raining against us every day.

    How much more insult to injury must we endure?

    Please speak out against Obama choosing illegal invaders over disabled veterans!

    1. This seems to be an attempt to change the subject and divert veterans from those goals they should be focused on. Veterans cannot solve all problems, as evidenced by the fact that we haven’t even solved our own problems!

  10. There needs to be a branch in the U.S. Justice Dept. that is specifically designed to prosecute these VA wrong doers. The VAOIG is just a big joke. Sure, they make recommendations to the VA, but does the VA follow through on any of them? I didn’t think so! It must feel nice to a lot of these VA executives who feel that they’re immune to any criminal prosecutions and can keep on doing harm to veterans. It’s time for change at the VA!

  11. Can I see a show of hands that are surprised by this? anyone? Is this on? Hello? I guess not. This shows how much we veterans mean to the Gov. we so strongly defended for years. How will they fix the other problems? I am sure it will be about the same way and then the “All clear” will be given and we will be fixed and we will never have anymore problems ever. I think us vets will be the next ones to be deported. That way the problem will be solved. (at least as far as the Gov. is concerned) I wonder how many billions that cost them.

  12. WE CANNOT ALLOW THE “FOX” TO GUARD THE “HEN HOUSE”. ALLOWING THE GOVT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHECKING ITSELF IS ALLOWING ME TO PRESIDE OVER MY OWN TRIAL.
    WE HAVE TO RID OURSELVES OF THESE “CROOKS” AND PRAY THEIR REPLACEMENTS ARE MORE SUITED TO TAKING CARE OF OUR VETS. I SUPPOSED THERE WILL ALWQAYS BE SOME “HANKY-PANKY”, BUT LET US PRAY THAT IT DOES NOT GET TO THIS POINT, EVER AGAIN.

  13. Is the traning a start or is this “the do all, end all”. THe previous post by Dennis (July 16,2014 @ 6:45am) stated that criminal charges are forthcoming. I think this was just a start. Time will tell. No one disagrees with the statement that this training would be a “slap in the face” if that is all the VA would do!

  14. They’re going to have to start criminally prosecuting some of these people that get away with harming veterans. Until the Justice Dept. steps in and starts doing that, this corrupt culture at the VA will go on and on and get much worse than it already is. Simply relying on the VA or the VAOIG to do anything is never going to effect any change at the VA, but the threat of criminal prosecutions and jail time will certainly make them think about changing course!

Comments are closed.