Late vet's family rips Baldwin for 'lip service'

WASHINGTON – The daughter of another veteran who died after treatment at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Tomah had harsh words Wednesday for Sen. Tammy Baldwin, whom she said offered only "lip service" when she sought help investigating his death.

"I would have thought that given the circumstances and the scrutiny she has been under, she would have done more," said Candace Baer-Delis, whose father died last month after suffering a stroke as he waited to be seen at the urgent care clinic at the Tomah medical center.

Baer-Delis wrote to the Madison Democrat and to Oshkosh Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Jan. 28, two weeks after her father's death – and one week after Gannett Wisconsin Media reported Baldwin had a damning inspection report on the Tomah facility but did not act on it for months.

Baer-Delis said she outlined what happened to her dad, Thomas Patrick Baer, 74, of Marshfield, noting that he waited hours for treatment, suffered two strokes, and received no anti-clotting medications and no CT scan because the center's CT scanner was broken.

Within a week, Johnson had sent a letter to VA officials demanding an investigation into the death and peppering them with questions about Baer's death and about equipment failures, urgent care wait times, and guidelines for timely treatment nationwide. But Baldwin's office just put her in touch with a county VA liaison to help get death benefits, Baer-Delis said.

"As much as I hate to say it, because I voted for her, Baldwin's office has been essentially useless," she said. "Lip service is really all we have gotten from them."

An aide to Baldwin confirmed Baer had reached out to her office and said the senator's chief of staff contacted the VA to ensure Baer's death is included in an investigation of deaths at the center.

But that was news to Baer-Delis, who said the difference between Wisconsin's senators, when it came to treatment of her family, could not be more stark.

"Senator Johnson called my mother and I personally to extend condolences -- we received a generic stamped letter from Baldwin's office," she said. "I was disappointed, but maybe my father's death was not important enough for her to pick up the phone."

Baldwin's office issued a laudatory press release Wednesday touting her actions on behalf of veterans ensnared in the scandal. But the senator won't answer questions about what she did with the damning inspection report she received last August.

She was the only member of Congress to receive a copy of the report, which raised "serious concerns" about the "unusually high" levels of opiates prescribed at the Tomah VA. Baldwin didn't call for an investigation until last month, after learning that 35-year-old Marine Corps veteran Jason Simcakoski died from an overdose while an inpatient at Tomah.

She fired a top aide after Gannett Wisconsin Media reported that she had the report and that a whistleblower repeatedly pleaded with Baldwin in November and December to take action on it, to no avail. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Baldwin offered the aide a severance package that included a confidentiality agreement.

On Wednesday, her office declined again to answer questions about the report, the aide's firing, the severance pay and confidentiality agreement.

Contact dslack@usatoday.com. Follow @donovanslack