Arlington, Va. – A recent investigation by the “Anderson Cooper 360” investigative team has unearthed even more shameful scheduling malfeasance and falsification of documents at the Phoenix VA facilities, according to new exclusive information released by CNN on Monday, June 23.
The whistleblower, Pauline DeWenter, a scheduling clerk at the Phoenix VA Hospital, alleges that, beginning as early as 2013, she was ordered by managers to hide a secret list in her desk that had as many as 1,700 patients on it who had been waiting as much as 9 months for appointments.
DeWenter also claims she has provided evidence to investigators that since the initial scandal broke, unnamed senior leadership at the Phoenix VA has been surreptitiously relisting veterans who had died awaiting care as still alive in order to cover up the true number of deceased patients.
In reaction, Pete Hegseth, CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, released the following statement:
“Tonight’s CNN report confirms our worst fears — the cover-up still continues at the Phoenix VA, as well as facilities across the country. In order to hide how many veterans have died while waiting on secret lists, administrators have gone so far as to resurrect dead veterans on paper. It’s a horror, and yet another example of why the VA bureaucracy needs to be ripped out by the roots and fundamentally reformed. To say it’s time for accountability is an understatement.
“Moreover, because the VA healthcare system is so dysfunctional and inefficient, scheduling clerks are forced to make life and death decisions about who gets care, and who waits. As a result, the de facto rationing leads to deaths — as veterans wait, in the desk drawer of a bureaucrat, for care they never receive.
“The sad truth is, this is what top-down, government-run healthcare looks like: delays, bureaucratic cover-ups, de facto rationing, poor care and more. It’s time for fundamental reform of the entire VA system.
“The VA has no credibility to demand or be given any control over those reforms. That credibility died with the veterans on its waiting lists.”
The entire story can be found here on CNN’s website, or by pasting the following URL into your browser: https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/23/us/phoenix-va-deaths-new-allegations
To schedule a TV interview with Pete Hegseth, CEO of CVA, or other CVA experts, please email booking@guestbooker.com.
For more information, contact Bill Turenne at 703-624-7298 or email bturenne@cv4a.org.
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Concerned Veterans for America is a non-partisan, non-profit, 501(c)(4) organization that advocates for policies that will preserve the freedom and liberty we and our families so proudly fought and sacrificed to defend.