Lead Investigator of Wait Times at Veterans Affairs Still Gets Criticism Over Report
Richard J. Griffin is known by veterans groups as the one who uttered that dirty little four-word phrase.
As the lead investigator looking into long wait times for veterans seeking health care, Griffin concluded he was unable to conclusively assert that delays at the Phoenix VA Health Care System had caused patients to die.
That finding has turned Griffin, acting inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs, into a lightning rod at the center of the biggest scandal in VAs history. He has become a target for the anger and frustration of veterans groups, VA medical staff and members of Congress who say his report, released in August, was a whitewash.
Griffins report included a number of startling examples of mismanaged care. For instance, one patient had to wait six weeks after he was examined to be told he had terminal lung cancer, and another sought mental health services but committed suicide before he got an appointment.
But because Griffin did not directly link wait times to any deaths, critics have been questioning his independence as a watchdog.
Now, they are opening a new front in their attacks on Griffin, saying that e-mails between his office and VA brass raise further concerns about whether he was too close to senior Obama administration officials. The e-mails show that VA officials asked Griffin for revisions and additions to the draft report and that several changes were made in the final version.
The fact that the IG spoke or acquiesced about anything at all with the VA is just abhorrent. There should be total loyalty to vets, and vets only, said Lou Celli, head of the veterans affairs and rehabilitation division of the American Legion, one of the countrys largest veteran groups. This shouldnt be about protecting the VA.
But Griffins supporters say the e-mails are benign and that the latest allegations, like those that came before, are without merit and often politically motivated. These backers say Griffin is being made a scapegoat for the VAs tragic failings.
Griffin has vigorously defended his work, saying VA officials did not influence the content of his report about the Phoenix irregularities or suggest that he include the four-word phrase. No one has the right to dictate the outcome, he said in a statement.
Our job is to speak the truth to power, and our record reflects that is exactly what we have always done, he said in a separate statement.
Several veterans groups and a prominent Republican lawmaker are asking President Obama to nominate a new inspector general who can start fresh and build trust.
Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and an outspoken critic of VA, said that Griffins office is not nearly as independent as it should be. In a letter to Obama, Miller said, It is vitally important that the VA office of Inspector General have an independent and objective leader in place to combat waste, fraud and abuse.
The scandal at the Phoenix hospital erupted after a whistleblower alleged that scheduling clerks were coached by VA administrators on how to cook the books and zero out wait times to hide long delays for patients. VA employees now say that the practice is widespread at veterans hospitals. In the wake of the revelations, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki resigned and was replaced by Robert McDonald, who has vowed to refocus care on the veterans and end the culture of fudging wait times.
Griffin began his first tour at VA as inspector general in 1997, after a 26-year career at the Secret Service, including as the deputy director responsible for directing investigations, protection and administration. He left VA in 2005 for a job at the State Department as the assistant secretary for diplomatic security. Two years later, Griffin resigned that post amid the controversy over the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad by Blackwater USA contractors, who were providing private security to U.S. officials in Iraq. He returned to VA in 2008 as deputy inspector general, before becoming acting inspector general at the start of this year.
Catherine Gromek, a spokeswoman for Griffins office, said the inspector generals office has been sounding the alarm about wait times at VA hospitals in various reports for more than nine years.
One of those documents, dating from 2008, is now fueling even more complaints about Griffins performance. Republican lawmakers say the memo shows the inspector general was long aware that wait times were being manipulated but did not press to end the abuses or publicize them. The report, a memorandum of administrative investigation, found that the Phoenix center was engaging in inappropriate scheduling practices and covering up excessive wait times long before the scandal exploded into public view this year.
But Griffin said the memo was one of many warnings made by his office and that these efforts to draw attention to such problems were repeatedly ignored by VA officials.
In response to concerns raised about the memo, his office released a statement this past week. At the time, we believed that a warning in the form of a memorandum of administrative investigation was sufficient to advise the Phoenix HCS Director of the problem so the Director could take corrective action, his office wrote in an e-mailed statement. While 20/20 hindsight is a trait in common abundance, we could not predict 6 years ago the string of broken promises to fix wait times and scheduling problems.
The e-mails between Griffins office and VA officials, which date to this summer, show that senior officials at the department were concerned about how the imminent report by the inspector general would be received by the public.
At the time, the media was widely reporting allegations by a whistleblower that 40 veterans had died because of delays at the Phoenix center. Griffin initially resisted making an explicit reference to this allegation in the report, e-mails show, because investigators had been unable to substantiate it. The inspector general called the figure a mystery number because the whistleblower never named the 40 individuals.
But VA, citing media interest and apparently concerned about how it would look if the whistleblowers allegation were completely ignored, insisted in e-mails that the final report reference it, in addition to a few other changes.
In an Aug. 4 e-mail to VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson, Griffin wrote, The 40 deaths is being added to the draft. We will forward updated language soon.
Thanks on all counts! I appreciate the focus on the 40 deaths .?.?., Gibson responded.
Miller said this exchange, among others, shows that Griffin had inappropriately coordinated the drafting of the report with senior VA officials.
Asked recently to comment on the e-mails showing the back and forth between him and senior VA officials over whether to mention the allegation of 40 deaths, Griffin provided a statement saying that the number was added because of the pervasiveness of the 40 deaths in media reports reports that reached tens of millions of Americans.
Addressing the contacts he had with Gibson, Griffin added in the statement: Rather than ascribe dubious motives to revisions to the draft report, we believe that the revisions demonstrate a commitment to explaining what happened in Phoenix in the clearest possible way. It was entirely appropriate for these two leaders to have an exchange about a matter of extreme gravity.
In a statement released Friday, VA said it sincerely apologizes to all Veterans who experienced unacceptable delays in receiving care in Phoenix and across the country. We have been working diligently to fix the problems and to ensure access to excellent care. We are committed to rebuilding trust with Veterans and the American public.
VA does not and cannot dictate the final content of any reports to the independent entity that authors them.
Art Wu, former Republican staff director for the oversight subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, defended Griffin as a man of integrity. Wu said Congress has held at least two hearings on waiting times at veterans health centers since 2006 and that the problem was well known.
Griffin has become a real scapegoat, said Wu, who worked with Griffin as a former House VA committee staffer. Its a very emotional issue if you think your loved one, your son or daughter, has died, and people want a scalp.
Anthony Principi, who was a VA secretary under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, said Griffin was a straight shooter and a very solid investigator. But Principi said he never recalls going back and forth with the inspector general over the editorial content of a draft report.
Alex Nicholson, legislative director of the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the inspector general and the wider VA should be doing more than 100 percent to restore faith. He added, To turn the VA around, everyone from the IGs office to the desk person taking in patients needs to go the extra mile to prove they are being honest. Thats how bad things have gotten.
Tags: Veterans News
