This Seems Actionable

[Kathianne]

Going on all over the country.

http://www.washingtonstarnews.com/union-officials-admit-they-let-veterans-die-rather-than-talk-to-republicans/


Union Officials Admit They Let Veterans Die Rather Than Talk To Republicans

A federal employee union president is wracked with regret because veterans likely died at a time when she knew about gross misconduct within her Department of Veterans Affairs facility but didn’t tell congressional leaders because they were Republicans.


“If I would’ve gone to him two years ago, who knows what kind of lives could’ve been saved,” Germaine Clarno told a radio interviewer Monday, referring to the Republican leader of a VA subcommittee. Clarno, a lifelong Democrat and social worker at the Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital in Hines, Ill., has been president of the union representing doctors at the hospital since before the deadly wait-time scandal unfolded.


Dozens of veterans have died in recent years while waiting for appointments with doctors at multiple VA hospitals and care centers around the nation. But VA staffers systematically manipulated records to make it seem like they didn’t have long waits. The problems became so severe by 2013, that as many as 40 patients died at just the Phoenix facility.


The same practices took place at Hines, with the knowledge of its director. Additional problems also plagued Hines, like heart scans getting discarded without being read.
[H/T The Daily Caller (http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/10/union-officials-admit-they-let-veterans-die-rather-than-talk-to-republicans/#ixzz42XvgMiFU)]

[NightTrain]

Going on all over the country.

http://www.washingtonstarnews.com/union-officials-admit-they-let-veterans-die-rather-than-talk-to-republicans/


Charge every one of those sonsabitches with murder. This scumbag admitted to murder, prosecute her now!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Charge every one of those sonsabitches with murder. This scumbag admitted to murder, prosecute her now!

They are dems/libs--thus they will do nothing or else give a very mild slap on the wrist to those responsible.
In the past in other cases , instead of punishment they'd just transfer that person to another facility/job and usually with a raise. Then announce they got rid of that offender.
Dem/liberal scum wouldn't know true justice if it fell on them like a ton of bricks. Fact.
They are maggots in my eyes.
Most of them hate our military--so a lot of this to them, likely felt like vengeance methinks. -Tyr

[CSM]

Charge every one of those sonsabitches with murder. This scumbag admitted to murder, prosecute her now!

Accessory to murder...perhaps..... more like negligent homicide or manslaughter

[Abbey Marie]

Disgusting. I wish someone had brought a reporter or cameraman to document their wait and treatment.

[NightTrain]

Accessory to murder...perhaps..... more like negligent homicide or manslaughter

Yep. I don't care what they call it, as long as they call it and run with it.

[Kathianne]

Disgusting. I wish someone had brought a reporter or cameraman to document their wait and treatment.

It's not just the waits, that's bad enough. There are complaints from all over the country that necessary treatments and surgeries are not done, because no answers to authorization is ever received. Literally cancer patients have died waiting for chemo treatments.

Concurrently literally tens or hundreds of reports of excessive spending by administrators. If punished at all, they are reassigned to other VA facilities.

[Kathianne]

update:

http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/22/close-call-va-worker-reinstated-with-back-pay-after-missing-time-due-to-being-in-prison-for-armed-robbery/


Close call: VA worker reinstated with back pay after missing time due to being in prison for armed robbery

POSTED AT 6:21 PM ON MARCH 22, 2016 BY JAZZ SHAW


The VA is a place where people tend to somehow magically fail upward. By that I simply mean that workers at all levels can be caught up in any sort of malfeasance or incompetence and not only retain their jobs, but apparently profit from their actions. We’ve told you the story of the executive who ran her department into the ground and was punished with a plush gig in the Philippines (http://hotair.com/?p=3894876). Then there was the Albany, New York administrator who was found to have drugs addicts on staff who were stealing the medication of the veterans and was fired, but somehow got her job back at full pay (http://hotair.com/?p=3893000). And, of course, who could forget the Arizona VA chiefs who cooked up the scheme to keep veterans on phony waiting lists where some of them literally died without seeing a doctor, but will keep their positions with full pay and benefits for as much as two more years (http://hotair.com/?p=3897807). But today we may finally have the story which tilts the pinball machine once and for all.


This one takes place down in Puerto Rico where one diligent VA worker found herself unable to report to work for an extended period of time. She was held up, you see, by an inconvenient inability to get a pass out of prison to make it into the office (http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/22/va-worker-gets-job-back-despite-armed-robbery-charge/). (Daily Caller)

When veterans at the Puerto Rico VA hospital come to the social work department seeking counseling and guidance, the secretary greeting them, Elizabeth Rivera Rivera, will be wearing a GPS monitor ankle bracelet, a condition of her probation.

Rivera was driving around Puerto Rico in the middle of the night on a Monday with Rolando Rio Febus and robbed a couple at gunpoint. Rivera was charged with armed robbery and her companion with armed robbery and gun charges.

Rebus’ bail was set at $2 million due to multiple previous arrests on gun charges. Bail for Rivera was set at $100,000, which she could not pay, leaving her to miss work while she sat in jail.



Well, that’s understandable at least. I mean, who among us hasn’t been out for a bit of late night carousing with our friends and somehow wound up holding somebody up at gunpoint. Hey… it happens. If I only had a nickel for every time…

But seriously, now. We rejoin our story after Ms. Rivera has gotten out of the slammer only to find that she’s been fired from her job. I know, right? I was shocked also. Some employers can be so unreasonable. But not to worry… she took her case to their union reps for resolution. You get three guesses as to what happened and the first two don’t count.

A Department of Veterans Affairs employee in Puerto Rico was fired after being arrested for armed robbery, but her union quickly got her reinstated — despite a guilty plea — by pointing out that management’s labor relations negotiator is a registered sex offender, and the hospital’s director was once arrested and found with painkiller drugs…

Employees said the union demanded her job back and pointed out that Tito Santiago Martinez, the management-side labor relations specialist in Puerto Rico, who is in charge of dealing with the union and employee discipline, is a convicted sex offender. Martinez reportedly disclosed his conviction to the hospital and VA hired him anyway, reasoning that “there’s no children in [the hospital], so they figure I could not harm anyone here.”

The union’s position — that another employee committed a crime and got away with it, so this one should, too — has been upheld by the highest civil service rules arbiters, and has created a vicious Catch-22 where the department’s prior indefensible inaction against bad employees has handcuffed it from taking action now against other scofflaws.



The union defense is brilliant here. A previous employee was also convicted of serious charges and is still employed, so it would be grossly unfair to fire anyone else who is similarly sent to jail. It’s perfect, really. At this point one of the VA workers could literally shoot someone in the parking lot and still get their job back as soon as they get home from prison. It’s just baked into the cake.

You are all now invited to smash the screens on your computers. You deserve a new one anyway. And hey… maybe we can get the VA to pay for it. (With your tax dollars, of course.)