Durbin Pushes for Highest Quality Care For Nation's Veterans

Press Release

Durbin Pushes For Highest Quality Care For Nation's Veterans

Veterans seeking care in the nation's VA hospitals would be able to rest easier about the quality of care they are provided if legislation to be offered next week by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is signed into law. Durbin wrote the bill in response to the troubling circumstances at the Marion Veterans Medical Center (VAMC) in southern Illinois which suspended all inpatient surgeries at the on August 31 due to an unusual increase in deaths over a six-month period.

"We don't have all the facts yet about the situation in Marion, but we do know that what happened is unacceptable. During the course of the investigation, four top level executives have been relieved of their post, one surgeon has resigned and this week agreed not to practice medicine in the U.S. again, and four others have had their privileges restricted," said Durbin, who believes the circumstances at the Marion VAMC may point to greater problems within the VA medical system.

Durbin's legislation is designed to tighten the process for hiring doctors, introduce a new quality assurance mechanism, and attract more quality medical professionals to the VA. The bill would require doctors applying to VA to disclose all past malpractice payments and disciplinary actions against them and any ongoing investigations or outstanding allegations, as well as to send a written request to any state board where they have ever held a license asking that board to disclose this same information to the VA. These measures would likely have stopped the Marion VA hospital from hiring Dr. Veizaga-Mendez while the Massachusetts State Medical Board was investigating him for gross incompetence.

Durbin's bill also calls for a designated doctor, with the appropriate seniority and qualifications, to monitor the quality of the surgeons on staff. This doctor will report directly to the leadership of the hospital but will also report to a similar quality assurance doctor at the regional level. This will ensure that if there is a lapse in leadership at the facility, which appears to have been the case at Marion, a separate avenue is there for employees to express concerns.

Finally, the legislation proposes incentives to more easily recruit quality doctors to practice in VA facilities, where salaries are often not competitive with private hospitals or private practice. It calls on VA facilities to establish close affiliations with nearby medical schools, proposes to help relieve crushing medical school debt for young doctors choosing a career path and offers incentives to bring more senior doctors into a veterans hospital setting, even if on a flexible or part-time basis.

Durbin and U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) have worked for nearly two months on the ongoing investigations regarding the care provided in Marion and the hiring of Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, who was allowed to practice medicine at the facility until August 2007 despite having to surrender his license in Massachusetts after cases of malpractice and disciplinary action. The Department of Veterans Affairs suspended all inpatient surgeries at the Marion VAMC in late August and the VA Inspector General has initiated an investigation. Four top hospital officials at Marion have also been reassigned until an Inspector General investigation is completed. Several times, Durbin and Obama have called on the former Secretary of Veterans, Jim Nicholson and the current Acting VA Secretary, Gordon Mansfield, to respond to information that has come to light regarding patient safety and the quality of care at the Marion VA Medical Center.

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