VA whistle-blowers urge Obama to fire inspector general

Donovan Slack | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A group of whistle-blowers from Veterans Affairs facilities across the country is calling for the replacement of interim VA Inspector General Richard Griffin, arguing in a letter to President Obama that the VA's chief watchdog is "unable to fulfill the responsibilities and duties" of the job.

Under federal law, the VA Office of Inspector General acts as an independent watchdog to investigate fraud, mismanagement and abuse at the agency. But the whistle-blowers' group says Griffin and his chief deputy for health care investigations, Dr. John Daigh, have gone after whistle-blowers rather than the problems they uncover, failed to cooperate with lawmakers' oversight and in some cases to conduct thorough investigations in a "horrifying pattern of whitewashing and deceit."

"Whistleblowers, VA employees, American taxpayers, and most importantly of all, our veterans, have lost confidence and trust in Mr. Griffin and the VA OIG," says the letter, which is signed by group leaders Shea Wilkes from the Shreveport, La., VA and Germaine Clarno of the Hines, Ill., VA. "New leadership is needed to correct the epidemic of rampant corruption that is prevalent throughout the Department of Veterans Affairs. Our nation's veterans have earned and deserve better. Mr. Griffin should be relieved of duty immediately."

The group, called VA Truth Tellers, consists of more than 40 whistle-blowers from VA medical facilities in more than a dozen states — including Arizona, Alabama, Delaware, and Wisconsin — that provide care to more than 650,000 veterans annually.

Ryan Honl, a member of the group who blew the whistle last fall on the over-prescription of opiates to veterans at the VA Medical Center in Tomah, Wis., is seeking a meeting with Obama when the president travels to La Crosse, Wis., Thursday so he can personally deliver the letter.

Griffin's office completed an investigation of opiate prescriptions at Tomah last year but closed the case without sharing findings with the public or Congress. Five months later, 35-year-old Marine Corps veteran Jason Simcakoski of Stevens Point died from mixed drug toxicity as an inpatient at Tomah, just days after doctors agreed to add another opiate to the 14 drugs he was already prescribed.

"The president is the only one who can initiate reform in the OIG," Honl said Monday.

Griffin is a deputy inspector general who took over as interim inspector general in December 2013, when his predecessor retired. Obama has yet to nominate a replacement.

The White House did not say Monday if Obama would meet with Honl or nominate a replacement for Griffin, but said "We of course support the work and commitment of all of the IG offices, including those currently being led by acting IGs and deputy IGs as they strive to ensure that taxpayers are getting the good government they deserve."

Catherine Gromek, Griffin's spokeswoman, did not respond to messages seeking comment. She said earlier this month that Griffin and Daigh have a combined 80 years of public service, have won performance awards and been effective leaders.

"The OIG has a long track record of exposing serious deficiencies in VA programs and operations and effecting meaningful change," she said.

The letter from the whistle-blowers comes roughly 10 days after Griffin's office issued a 13-page "white paper" that seeks to bolster his findings in the Tomah probe, which did not substantiate wrongdoing.

In the paper, Griffin's office criticizes a pharmacist who was fired after she raised concerns about opiate prescriptions in 2009. The white paper says the pharmacist, who testified as a whistle-blower at a congressional hearing in Tomah in March, was fired for poor performance, not for raising concerns.

The paper also insinuates that another whistle-blower who was fired after raising concerns may have had a drug problem.

Dr. Christopher Kirkpatrick committed suicide the day he was fired in 2009, three months after the clinical psychologist was disciplined with a written reprimand for raising concerns about a colleague's prescribing practices, according to a copy of the reprimand obtained by USA TODAY.

In the white paper, the inspector general "strongly recommend(s)" a review of a sheriff's report that says drugs were found in his apartment when he died, though the paper gives no reason why that is relevant. "The evidence indicates that Dr. Kirkpatrick was likely not only to have been using but also distributing the marijuana and other illegal substances," the inspector general states.

Kirkpatrick's family members say they are incensed. Sister Katy Kirkpatrick called it "slanderous against my deceased brother, Dr. Christopher Kirkpatrick, and highly offensive."

"It's outrageous and insulting to his memory," brother Sean Kirkpatrick said. "Clearly, they never took his death seriously and the only play they have is to discredit him as they have with so many others who were brave enough to do the right thing and question the dangerous practices that took place there for years."

Honl, the Tomah VA whistle-blower, said it is indicative of a pattern of Griffin and his health care deputy, Daigh, going after whistle-blowers.

"Is it any wonder that those who would raise concerns in the VA stay in the dark when the chief watchdog throws those employees under the bus who stand up speaking on behalf of harmed and dead veterans?" Honl said. "The OIG office and Richard Griffin are directly responsible for instilling fear among front-line staff."

Griffin has come under fire repeatedly since last fall, when a report his office issued on falsified patient wait times in Phoenix did not conclude they contributed to veteran deaths. He later conceded under questioning at a congressional hearing that they had.

Earlier this year, USA TODAY reported that the Tomah findings last year weren't the only ones Griffin declined to release. Griffin hadn't released 140 other reports on health care investigations across the country since 2006, including substantiated cases of veteran harm and death.

In March, an inspector general at another agency, the Treasury Department, said witness testimony in a review of a contracting investigation by Griffin's office negated Griffin's findings and "calls into question the integrity of the VA OIG's actions." Last month, a former cardiologist at the Hines VA hospital outside Chicago, Dr. Lisa Nee, blasted Griffin's office for what she said was a shoddy investigation into unnecessary cardiac procedures performed on veterans at the hospital.

On Thursday, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, issued a preliminary report on its review of what happened at the Tomah VA. The findings included evidence that outside pharmacists told investigators from Griffin's office in 2012 and 2013 that opiate prescription rates at the facility were excessive and unsafe but the inspector general did not include those opinions in his report.

Johnson and Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin joined eight other senators from both parties in writing a letter to Obama last week urging him to nominate a permanent inspector general. They did not call for Griffin to step down but said nomination of a permanent inspector general would "help rebuild the trust that was lost through systemic failures in accountability and transparency at the department."

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