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VA SECRETARY NICHOLSON: VA WILL TREAT CIVILIANS
IN A PINCH -- "As long as it's a
life-threatening emergency.
Absolutely. If there's confusion about that,
I'm going to clarify that myself."
Bay Pines VA
This story is a continuation of an event that
took place at the Bay Pines VA in Florida. A "civilian" was turned
away, and later died.
For more on this story and the Bay Pines VA, use the VA Watchdog search
engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=bay+pines&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.sptimes.com/
2007/08/07/Hillsborough/VA
_will_treat_civilia.shtml
Story below:
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VA will treat civilians in pinch
"If that's the closest hospital and it's a life-and-death event," the VA
secretary says.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA - Critically ill nonveterans can be taken to any Department of
Veterans Affairs emergency room in the nation if it's the closest
medical facility, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said Monday.
"If that's the closest hospital and it's a life-and-death event, they
should be brought immediately to the VA's emergency facility," Nicholson
told the St. Petersburg Times. "As long as it's a life-threatening
emergency. Absolutely. If there's confusion about that, I'm going to
clarify that myself."
Nicholson's comments may alleviate uncertainty that surfaced after the
Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg refused to treat a
nonveteran who suffered a heart attack June 26 about 200 feet from its
emergency room. Mark A. Surette, 51, later was pronounced dead at a
hospital 10 minutes away.
Bay Pines officials said that Surette's case was an "aberration" and
that a doctor thought he fell ill while off VA property.
Both the VA and Pinellas officials had said Bay Pines does not accept
nonveterans who fall ill off VA property.
But during a 10-minute interview, Nicholson offered no room for
ambiguity: VA doctors will treat severely ill nonveterans, even if they
fall ill off department property.
"That's a responsibility we have to any citizen, and it's consistent
with the Hippocratic Oath," Nicholson said. "I'm checking that out to
make sure it is VA policy, and if it isn't, it darn sure will be."
Nicholson said he thought that was already VA policy, though he
acknowledged being uncertain.
Surette's daughter, Erica Bailey, 23, of Minot, N.D., who has been angry
at the VA's response to her father's case, expressed gratitude at
Nicholson's comments.
"It's great," Bailey said. "I'm just glad something good can come out of
all of this."
Nicholson visited the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa on
Monday for a ribbon-cutting at the Fisher House, a facility where
families of wounded veterans can stay cost-free while loved ones receive
treatment.
Over the last two weeks, national VA spokespersons have not returned
repeated calls for comment on the VA policy for treatment of nonveterans.
But Nicholson, who is expected to step down from his post by Oct. 1,
agreed to a brief interview after the Fisher House festivities.
Nicholson said he had read news reports of Surette's case and was
saddened.
"My first reaction was one of sorrow for the loss of this valued VA
employee and the loss to his family and to the VA community who knew
this man and valued him as an employee and a friend," Nicholson said.
"It's a tragic loss."
But with the VA's medical inspector now investigating the incident,
Nicholson said he would "reserve judgment" on the facts of the case
until reading the inspector's report.
Nicholson said the medical inspector, an independent investigative arm
within the VA, had already begun working on the case.
The Pinellas medical director, Dr. Laurie Romig, also is investigating
the paramedic response to Surette's heart attack. She said Nicholson's
stance is a departure for the VA.
"But I'd say it's a welcome one," Romig said. "More resources (for
county paramedics) are usually better."
Chuck Kearns, Pinellas' Emergency Medical Services director, said he did
not know if Nicholson's comments would lead county paramedics to start
routinely bringing nonveterans to Bay Pines.
"It very well may," Kearns said.
But he noted that he doesn't know what the VA's emergency capabilities
are. For example, Kearns said, a burn patient might be taken to Tampa
General Hospital because it has the area's best burn unit, even if it's
not the closest hospital.
County paramedics, he said, don't always take a patient to the closest
emergency room. It depends on the type of injury and which hospital is
best set up to treat it.
"We have to see what their clinical capabilities are," Kearns said.
The VA has said it is impossible to know if the delay in getting Surette
to an emergency room cost him his life. One county EMS official said a
week ago that a doctor could have done little more for Surette than
paramedics on the scene.
In the days after news of the case broke, the county signed an agreement
with Bay Pines saying paramedics could bring a severely ill nonveteran
to its emergency room without calling first - if the patient fell ill on
Bay Pines sprawling campus.
Both Pinellas and VA representatives said it has never been Bay Pines
policy to accept critically ill nonveterans who fall ill elsewhere, even
if Bay Pines is the closest emergency room.
"Our normal protocol is, if the patient is across the street (from Bay
Pines), then we take them to St. Pete General" Hospital, Craig Hare,
Pinellas' current EMS division chief, said a week ago.
Bay Pines has treated two dozen nonveterans in the last year, John
Pickens, a VA regional spokesman, has said. But all those, he said, had
fallen ill on the facility's 338-acre campus.
Amid the recent confusion, Rep. C.W. Bill Young asked the VA to produce
its nonveteran policy. What Young received showed the agency had no
prohibition against treating critical nonveterans once they were at a VA
emergency room.
But the written policy he received did not appear to address the
question of what the VA should do when paramedics called seeking
permission to admit a patient, as happened with Surette.
William R. Levesque can be reached at
levesque@sptimes.com
or(813) 226-3436.
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Larry Scott --
