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Department of Veteran Affairs patient advocate who was recorded on a security camera assaulting a veteran patient still has his job. Video of the encounter, released by WSB-TV, shows Phillip Webb, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran, being choked, body-slammed, and thrown to the ground at the Department of Veterans Affairs Clinic at Fort McPherson. The assault took place on April 28, 2022. Lawrence F. Gaillard Jr., a patient advocate at the clinic, was arrested that day and charged with felony assault. In the video, Webb can be seen in a waiting room. After Gaillard points his finger in Webb’s face, he...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is moving to make gender-affirming surgeries covered by the department's healthcare, Secretary Denis McDonough announced Saturday. While speaking at a Pride Month event at the Orlando Vet Center in Florida, McDonough said the agency was “taking the first necessary steps to expand VA's care to include gender confirmation surgery,” which he said would allow “transgender vets to go through the full gender confirmation process with VA at their side," according to CNN. "There are several steps to take, which will take time. But we are moving ahead, methodically, because we want this important change in...

Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, expected on Tuesday that every committee member, Democrat and Republican, would vote for the VA Care in the Community Act (HR 4242), his comprehensive plan developed over months to reform the flawed Veterans Choice program. Roe therefore said he was surprised and disappointed when all nine Democrats at the bill’s markup hearing opposed the legislation they helped to shape and for which they were original co-sponsors. In a phone interview, Roe blamed the split vote on “pure, blatant, raw politics based on this tax bill.” The tax bill in...

The Department of Veterans Affairs for years relied on old and illegal policy allowing VA hospitals to hire medical workers even if their licenses had been revoked, according to a USA Today investigation. In 2002 the VA issued national guidelines giving hospitals the discretion to hire clinicians with revoked licenses after considering the facts of the the situation and as long as the individual still had a license in at least once state. But three years earlier in 1999, Congress passed a law prohibiting the VA from employing any health care workers whose license has been revoked in any state....

<p>USA Today revealed yesterday that the Veterans Administration intentionally hired doctors and other practitioners who had their credentials revoked in other jurisdictions, thanks to a policy set forth in direct contravention to the law: The Department of Veterans Affairs has allowed its hospitals across the country to hire health care providers with revoked medical licenses for at least 15 years in violation of federal law, a USA TODAY investigation found.</p>

The Obama administration wants to keep people collecting Social Security benefits from owning guns if it is determined they are unable to manage their own affairs, the Los Angeles Times reported. The push, which could potentially affect millions whose monthly disability payments are handled by others, is intended to bring the Social Security Administration in line with laws that prevent gun sales to felons, drug addicts, immigrants in the United States illegally, and others, according to the paper. The language of federal gun laws restricts ownership to people who are unable to manage their own affairs due to "marked subnormal...

Dozens of Veterans Affairs workers who have come forward with stories of mismanagement and patient abuse say they have faced retaliation within the scandal-scarred agency, according to federal investigators. In one case, a VA employee with a spotless record over two decades was suspended after reporting patients had been inappropriately restrained, according to one of 37 such complaints filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). In another case, an employee claimed to have been demoted after disclosing alleged mishandling of patient care funds. The employee was temporarily reassigned and an investigation is still ongoing, OSC officials said. The...

NASA may have the Right Stuff, but it’s not essential. In fact, of all the larger government agencies, NASA is sending the largest percentage home in the government shutdown because they are considered not essential. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Department of Veterans Affairs, which usually doesn’t grab attention unless something goes wrong, has one of the highest percentage of workers considered essential and staying on. …

Shortages of beds, doctors and nurses in the Baltimore VA Medical Center’s emergency room resulted in nearly half of a sample of patients spending more than 6 hours at the facility, including one who waited more than 24 hours, according to a critical inspection report released this month. … The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general’s office detailed the shortcomings in a report that criticized the hospital’s leadership for lacking policies to provide on-call doctors and nurses to boost staffing when patient volume surged. Backups in treating patients led to some being examined in the emergency department’s triage area, without...

SIX months after her husband was killed fighting in Afghanistan, Breeanna Till is broke - let down by the government that promised solemnly to look after her. Heavily pregnant with the child Sergeant Brett Till will never know, the Sydney widow fears becoming like "a single mum on the dole" when she gives birth in a few weeks. The $905 weekly pay her husband brought home lasted just a fortnight after he died in a roadside bomb explosion. In its place, the military gave Mrs Till a compensation payment of just $305 a week. Sgt Till, 31, was a much-respected...