Affairs, that large govern mental bureaucracy created to help and to serve the countries veterans. But for multiple reasons, the department that has never run the way it was supposed to. Many veterans receive sub standard medical care, many are denied medications necessary to live their lives as normally as possible. And then another terrible development. According to military veteran project dot org 22 veterans commit suicide every single day. Saw me even do so in the parking lots of the veterans hospitals where theyve been denied care. Our guest today is ted blick, wadel. He served his country for 27 years in the us marine corps, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He decided upon retirement to consider serving his fellow veterans and he received counseling training and went to work in the department of Veterans Affairs hospital before then moving on to the vet centers. The centers are Community Based counseling clinics that were established in the wake of the vietnam war to connecting social workers and counselors with military or combat experience to other combat veterans. That way they spoke the same language, had similar experiences and could better understand the pressures of post military life type begin providing counseling for vets, centers in 2009, but by 2016, he realized that what was originally a people centered approach to helping veterans had simply become the numbers game where patients were rushed through appointments to meet Veterans Administration numbers. Expectations to begin to feel burned out and you realize that other counselors were having the same experience. In 2018, he emailed nearly 1300 vets Center Counselors across the country to learn how the das expectations and bureaucratic demands were affecting them. The results were so stunning, the ted decided to blow the whistle, resulting in a Government AccountabilityOffice Report that in 2020, revealed that the new productivity standards were leading to counselor burn out across the country. A bill to correct these wrongs is pending in the congress, but it has not yet been acted upon. In the meantime, ted has written a book called broken promises, which chronicles his experience and provides insights into how to report problems in government agencies. Ted blick way to welcome to the show we are so happy to have you. Well, thank you for having the jobs. Great to be here. Ted. Lets begin with the end of your military career and the beginning of your 2nd career as a counselor. What made you want to go into this line of work . Was it that you saw a need based on your own experiences as well . Yes, i have a history of t. J is the exacerbated when i was in the military. I am a conduct veterans in the persian gulf war and you know, i saw a great need at that time for our, our military veterans and even active duty that really needed a lot of assistance. And ive always had an interest in the counseling field. And so when i retired from the military, i went back to school, got another masters degree in clinical social work from Rhode Island College where i then did an internship at the v. A Medical Center in providence, rhode island, and subsequently worked at the the va that center in work rhode island for 9 years in 2009 to 2018. Honestly, i cant think of many more important programs than providing counseling to our veterans who may be dealing with things like moral injury, post Traumatic Stress disorder, depression, or other Mental Health issues. We owe it to them to provide the best possible services. And you decided that your 2nd act would be to help those veterans. When did you realize that there was a systemic problem . A while in 2016, a memorandum came out from subject from the da Central Office, basically increasing our clinical productivity expectations. And this policy was such that its um, increased the visit, count with the standard visits of 50 to 60 minutes. Seeing individuals um where by we used to have to have i was referred to as 50 percent direct service time. So i have a 40 hour work week. We were to have face to face time with veterans or family members out of those 20 hours out of those 40 hours. Well, by this increasing the way it did, and when he was 30 visits per week, what this meant was on a 50 to 60 minute session. This increase the face time that we are expected to have by, by 50 percent. So basically, 75 percent of our work week or 30 hours a week in 1. 00 and 1. 00 type situations was required to, to meet that requirements which did not allow enough time with all these additional administrative duties progress notes, treatment plans and such to be able to get everything done. So counselors were you know, not taking breaks, working through lunch and virtually put in an extra time that they werent getting paid for just to get the administration of the administrative portion of the, of the job done. And it just became stressful to the point where counselors were, were starting to burn out. Um, taking fmla leave worried theyre going to lose their jobs because of a number man. And that came out that if you know, meet the requirements youre subject to h r. I, you know, kind of interaction, which basically is setting you up to get fire is what that kind of boils down to is a lot of people are and what were the things id written going on medication. Um, you know, seen their own therapist and such and so this put us in an ethical dilemma. Do we meet these numbers or offer the quality care thats a veterans and their family members deserve. And that was the position we were put in and, and it just put a lot of pressure on people and, and, and thats, you know, this was around for after a year. 2016 going into 2017. Where over that year, this was a parent, like most whistle blowers you went through your chain of command when you realize that there was a problem. And you went armed with data. You had sent this email to almost 1300 other counselors around the country. So you knew that you werent alone in your conclusion that the department of Veterans Affairs was more interested in numbers than it wasnt actually helping individuals. What was the reaction to your revelations internally as well . Actually, you know, a lot of us counselors were, were talking, we had to even get this a deputy district one director for the Vet Center Program here in the northeast, making round and doing clinical site visits. We unanimously, were telling him at this site visit, you know, weve got this problem that i was just describing. And, and, and he said yes, ive heard that every where i go, meaning other thats centers where he was doing clinical site visits. That was significant. And um, and hes still working at the va deal, well, as hes still in district one, somewhere, entered in his deputy uh, you know, clinicals director slot in, in district one and in one of his zones. And you know, its just the types of all, you know, nothing got done about it we, we rate and so at that point is when i went out with an email to the chief r c s Vet Center Program officer in Central Office in washington at the v a and describes problems your work was causing the, the compromise, quality, Mental Health care, the counselor burn out. Uh, frankly, it is an ethical. I have research in a book i published about the whole thing, the backs up the fact that this in fact is, is on ethical and what they were asking was basically affecting your to be negative treatment outcomes. Because of going over certain limit with, with visits per week and you know, it just, um, just got out of control and, and basically when they failed to respond back to me when mike fisher, they are as the as chief officer failed to respond to the after a week i went out with that same email with the additional comments, but this time i cced info to everybody in the Program District directors, that Center Directors and about 1300 counselors across the country. And at that point it, it got a response. And, and with what happened was within 48 hours after i had already received 57. 00 responses from the 42. 00 that Centers Across 25. 00 states. They had shut down my computer. Otherwise i would have had hundreds of responses fall escalating the very same thing. I was saying how this is excessive is hurting us as a business model. This, thats an ethical and, you know, we cant keep going on like this and, and people just started, you know, looking for other work of private practice and taking early retirement. And to this day, theres still an issue with a high turnover rate because of this, it was then that you decided to go public with what you knew and you went to the Government Accountability office. Thats exactly the place where you were supposed to go. Thats the organization thats supposed to keep the honest people honest, so to speak in government, they confirmed your allegations and turned the capitol hill for a solution. So i guess my question is 2 fold. First, with a finding by g, a o that you were correct in your allegations. Why didnt the department of Veterans Affairs just correct the situation . And 2nd, once a bill was written and introduced in congress to correct the deficiencies that you found, why wasnt action taken on it immediately . Okay, well uh 1st of all, um, the reason action hasnt been taken based on the g o recommendations is that came out on the report in september of 2020 is because its easier for the va and any bureaucracy. You know that this guilty of misconduct and abuse, you know, frankly, to silence someone speaks up about as a lot easier to do that and actually fix the problem. And then then them having to be comfortable and, and held accountable for that. So thats just, you know, basic uh, retaliation tactics. Is this a pretty Standard Operating Procedure . And so as things move forward and the ga, all you know, validate some allegations, this led to the Vet Center Improvement at which they allowed me to edit the bill on before it went to the floor for a vote. And basically, this legislation was passed and signed into law just this past december as an amendment to the f y 23 National Defense authorization act. Its h r 76. Im sorry, h r 7776. Section 5126 pages 8192825 it lays out all the concerns and what the das require to do with g, a o, and congressional oversight. Now, the bill now in the bill, what it says is the v a has one year to actually start compliance with the bill. So they have time to get their ducks lined up, which means now going into 2024. They should be taking steps to implement which, which theyre required to do with g on congressional oversight, which basically comes down to the counselors having an opportunity to give feedback in an electronic database that cannot be altered by any party. And this is a non of as feedback. B where the das required to establish and theyre trying to work in groups to review this 3rd parties are able to have access to this without it being altered. So the a cant minimize things or trash things that they dont want to be known and. And then the, the, a secretary based on that feedback is then required to submit a report to Congress Based on the findings of any corrective action thats being taken. Ted, please hang with us. Were going to take a short break and when we come back, were going to talk to 10 look wadel about whos continuing work to write these ones through a very well received book called broken promises stated. 2 2 the acceptance and im here to plan with you whatever you do, do not watch my new show. Seriously. Why watch something thats so different whitelisted of opinions that he wont get anywhere else. Welcome to please, or do they have the state department, the c, i a weapons makers, multi 1000000000 dollar corporations. Choose your fax for you. Go ahead. Change and whatever you do. Dont want my show stay main street because im probably going to make you uncomfortable. My show is called direction, but again, you probably dont want to watch it because it might just change the way you in the den. Yes. I love you. Done, boss. My names still furious maximus crane. Im an american citizen and then yes, which is why im here to show you back to do the was the truth. And as you can see, my government supplied weapons of struck for civilian area. This isnt a military target, this is a grocery store, does go to, my gosh, i cant imagine how these people have looked like this for 9 years. And there are children here. Im telling you that have died because of my government, the United States governments funding of this list more of a baby star here in a civilian populated area civilians. Right here you can see an impact of the seas are so this makes me angry. Im sorry. Oh, i mean, i know, but still you know, you feel responsible as in america, the, as all forces were hiding and civilian structures, the machine. And so we saw outside courtyard, the nazi tattoos on his body. Our journey is that its good versus evil. I pray that and i pray that victory comes soon, and i believe it will. The, the, the known in vietnam as the american war, the vietnam war lost its almost 2 decades and dragged in numerous countries. Not any time between now and then you dont see it now. What did go on empty . Hundreds of thousands of american troops was sent to the country to bank the south vietnamese on me. I bought that, not much american soldiers, limited resistors. Most of us like the down entire villages and spread dangerous chemicals and lee by all right, did the americans ever fully acknowledge what they did and on the vietnamese veterans ready to forgive . Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thats, thats a ways to go. Yeah. Welcome back to the with the globe. 2 im john curry onto were speaking with u. S. Department of Veterans Affairs whistleblower ted la. Guido, about his whistle blowing over the issue of counseling for American Military veterans. Ted, its good to have you with us. Thanks for hanging in there. Thanks again, john. Good to be back to you wrote a book called broken promises that has been very well received. The reviews are universally positive and most for viewers. Describe the book as important. Did you originally set out to write a book or was it something that developed over time . Well, this is actually something that developed. Ive never intended fact. I didnt want to write a book. To be honest with you, then people kept telling me though you got to do this, you got to do this. So i, i had a lot of encourage me, you know, this could be very beneficial that only to the issue, but other things. And so i decided to go ahead and start working on this in uh, i believe it was a 2021 is when i started putting things together from documents and things i had written already is part of the journal and and, and its finally got published um this past month in august of 2023 to in the book, you talk about retaliation from superiors at vets, centers you talk about abuse and misconduct that you encountered while you were there. Tell us a little bit about that and knowing also that you are certainly not the 1st whistle blower to call out waste, fraud, abuse and illegality at the department of Veterans Affairs. Why do you think it is that the Department Just cant seem to clean up its act . Well, like any bureaucracy is like an Aircraft Carrier. When you try to turn in the Aircraft Carrier around, youve got to go about 5 miles and it turns very slowly. So the wheels in, in a large bureaucracy like the va, which is the Largest Health care system in, in the world. And, you know, thats, thats something, unfortunately, to be expected because of all the red tape you gotta go through to make any changes. But more importantly, anything that does need to be changed, its gotta get elevated to a level where theyre going to be held accountable. And this is what happened when this legislation finally passed that i talked about in the last segment. That was important to that and but what was also important is, is the local and National Media interviews i had done with nbc military times and p. R and other networks and getting Political Action galvanized behind this and following through on the house and the senate side and with the Veterans Affairs committee through my congressional delegates in Rhode Island Center to read in congress in sicily. And. And so thats kind of what made the difference to elevate this thing to put the v in a position where they could no longer just disregard, minimize and, and, and, and try to make it go away. One of the important parts of this book is near the end, where you talking about lessons learned. One interviewer said that it is something of a manual for potential whistle blowers have other potential or would be whistle blowers come to you to discuss their own situations. And if so, what advice have you given them as well . Absolutely. They have that. I 1st just want to do a quick caviar about the book and its value to that in the book was written to expose the issues with the recommendations and what needs to be done in the legislation as needed, which finally passed. So thats important. Also to raise awareness of to the general public and politicians. What happens to people that speak truth to power . So i very visually and very on a very deep personal level. Talked about the impact it had on me with the depression. The anger being emotionally isolated, the impact that had in my family, my colleagues, it was absolutely horrific. Legal and financial consequences that were, that were pretty bad and, and consequently, um, you know, exposing that and getting it means these are actually malicious tactics that are use like mobbing gas lighting silencing. Um, you know, power accusations, and one of the things they did with me was t