And also with that we have [laughter] we have a commentary on the constitution of the United States, two volumes. This is gorgeous. And also what we call the familiar exposition of the constitution of the United States by the joseph story, and with all modesty i must say it has a foreword by me. [laughter] [applause] now if youll join us all, and we have in the foyer we will have a reception where you can personally meet the judge, but before we leave i just want to thank you again personally for being with us for all youve done for the law, and particularly for being with us tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] we take you live now to the National Press club for remarks from Veterans Affairs secretary robert mcdonald. You will be speaking today but efforts to improve medical care and other services for veterans. Secretary mcdonald has been on the job for just over 100 days. It took over the department after former secretary Eric Shinseki retire
Scope a future project to go out and verify that, in fact, everything is working according to the plan. Do not want to make recommendations that just sit on the shelf. No. We follow up on a quarterly basis. I share your enthusiasm for the new secretary, and i believe he is committed to both changing the attitude of the va and making these specific reforms. Do you think the bill that we just passed, the compromise bill, will be useful in addressing some of these 24 recommendations . Im afraid im not totally versed on the bill. I know there have been a number of legislative changes made in order to assist the department in accomplishing their mission. But id like to take that for the record if i may. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Members, we do need to pause. I apologize to the witnesses. We think it may be about 30 minutes for us to go and do that. Well give you a heads up when were going to start back. And this hearing is in recess un
All right, senator burr suggests maybe we should make a wait a few minutes for other members to come back from recess. Lets take a quick recess here. Its create cal we continue to have these hearings to do everything we can to hold v. A. s feet to the fire and make sure that accountability is there. We know some things now that we did not know at the last hearing. We know for a fact that v. A. s wait list manipulation and access to care issues is, in fact, systemic. Report after report has confirmed this. In fact, 77 facilities are currently under investigation by the v. A. Inspector general. Its an astounding number. And i believe the scheduling problems are the tip of the iceberg. Now we have allegations of whistle blower retaliation and mproper payment of claims. The cancer doesnt seem to stop, but it must be stopped. While i appreciate your efforts , secretary gibson, i think you have done some things, and they are recognized and acknowledged. But i think wed all acknowledge theres
I want to start by noting that the committee has been particularly supportive as the staff and the oversight investigation subcommittee for their work on this issue and their work with our agency we consider it to be a Real Partnership and we are very grateful for this committees support. We have received a number of referrals from this committee and we appreciate your confidence and ability to work with the employees that your office refers. So thats one thing. Its already happening. We are doing everything that we possibly can. Weve set up a priority system and we free allocated staff to handle the va employee claims. But as the numbers increase its a very hard to keep up. We were at capacity before. In the retaliation cases now it exceeds 130, and the number as i mentioned continues to increase pretty much daily. We are an agency that has 120 employees more or less. We have jurisdiction for the statute for the reemployment rights act and we are working now on a demonstration for the
I appreciate what the secretary is doing with the restructuring and coming up with a strong internal audit system. However i must express that i am skeptical about how that is going to work. We have the whistleblower protection act but its not enforced. My concern burst of office we have heard so much testimony in thandthe committee about a cultf secrecy and culture of retaliation, and retaliation is a huge deterrent to hearing the complaints. So my first question is to you we heard theres been retaliation against employees. I encountered there is retaliation against patients who might feel they have a complaint against a facility. Are you aware of any retaliation against patients or veterans . I think thats a really important question. Im not aware of any retaliation in part because my Agency Jurisdiction is for employees to come forward with retaliation complaints or disclosures of waste, fraud, abuse or Health Safety problems. Someone could come to us if they thought that a patient