VA is still targeting whistle-blowers, employees say

WASHINGTON - The Department of Veterans Affairs continues to retaliate against whistle-blowers despite repeated pledges to stop punishing those who speak up, a group of employees said Tuesday. One called the department's office of inspector general a "joke."

VA whistle-blowers from across the country told a Senate committee that the department has failed to hold supervisors accountable more than a year after a scandal that broke over chronic delays for veterans seeking medical care and falsified records covering up the waits.

Shea Wilkes, a mental health social worker at the Shreveport, La., VA hospital, said agency leaders are "more interested in perpetuating their own careers than caring for our veterans."

Wilkes, who helped organize a group known as "VA Truth Tellers," said that "years of cronyism and lack of accountability have allowed at least two generations of poor, incompetent leaders to plant themselves within the system," harming medical treatment for veterans.

"Until we are able to protect whistle-blowers and potential whistle-blowers, the true depth of the corruption within the VA will not be known," Wilkes said, calling the VA's office of inspector general a "joke."

Republicans and Democrats on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee urged President Obama to appoint a permanent inspector general at the minimum.

Sen. Ron Johnson, the panel's chairman, said the appointment would be a "basic first step" to help ensure the office is transparent and independent. Johnson (R., Wis.) said the VA "has a cultural problem" of retaliating against whistle-blowers that must be fixed.

Carolyn Clancy, chief medical officer for the Veterans Health Administration, the agency's health-care arm, said the department's responsibility to protect whistle-blowers "is an integral part of our obligation to provide safe, high-quality health care. Retaliation against whistle-blowers who have demonstrated the moral courage to share their concerns is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated."