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2005 PROBE FOUND TROUBLES AT SALISBURY VA
HOSPITAL -- Determined doctors and nurses cut
corners on treatment, manipulated records, and
didn't talk enough with patients and families.
Story here...
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/
mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/local/16874685.htm
Story below:
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'05 probe found troubles at N.C. VA hospital
The Associated Press
SALISBURY, N.C. - Two years before disclosures of shoddy care at one of
the country's top Army hospitals, federal investigators found a history
of neglectful care at a veterans medical center in Salisbury, according
to a 2005 report by the Office of the Medical Inspector.
The report, launched after an anonymous complaint about 12 suspicious
deaths at the hospital, determined doctors and nurses cut corners on
treatment, manipulated records, and didn't talk enough with patients and
families, The Charlotte Observer reported Friday.
The report also highlighted what investigators called the inadequate
care received by two of the veterans who died there.
The investigators spent four days at Hefner VA Medical Center, one of
the fastest-growing VA hospitals in the country, to see whether
thousands of N.C. veterans were consistently receiving safe and thorough
care.
The inspectors said the hospital should take "immediate appropriate
action to ensure patient safety," and listed a wide range of recommended
changes.
The report showed "a gross lack of leadership at almost every level,
certainly medically," said Oscar Aylor, a professor at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has helped run three hospitals. "You
should just be appalled at the whole situation."
Portions of the report are "not true or reflective of what we did,"
interim director Sidney Steinberg said Thursday.
The hospital replaced at least three doctors and a chief nurse a month
after the report, but Steinberg said the firings were in the works
before the investigators arrived.
Donald Moore, who was director of the hospital at the time of the
inspection and now heads a VA facility in Phoenix, could not be reached
for comment.
President Bush has ordered a comprehensive review of conditions at
military and veterans hospitals after substandard outpatient care was
revealed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., one of
the premier facilities for injured soldiers.
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Larry Scott --
