Capacity Problems at the Heart of VA Deaths

The cause of the controversy in which tens of veterans were put on waiting lists for specialty care at VA hospitals and died before they were seen is due to “deep-seated management problems” involving inadequate staffing and poor appointment tracking, according to a report from the New York Times.

Richard J. Griffin, acting inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs told the Times that department managers failed to hire nurses to cover vacancies and did not have a system for tracking veterans’ appointments.

According to Mr. Griffin, the department of the inspector general had been reporting inaccuracies in wait time data since 2005.

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