More mistakes uncovered at V.A. Hospitals.

// added June 21, 2009 // 13 comments //
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31470106/ns/health-the_new_york_times/

For patients with prostate cancer, it is a common surgical procedure: a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the disease. But when Dr. Gary D. Kao treated one patient at the veterans’ hospital in Philadelphia, his aim was more than a little off.

Most of the seeds, 40 in all, landed in the patient’s healthy bladder, not the prostate.

It was a serious mistake, and under federal rules, regulators investigated. But Dr. Kao, with their consent, made his mistake all but disappear.

He simply rewrote his surgical plan to match the number of seeds in the prostate, investigators said.

The revision may have made Dr. Kao look better, but it did nothing for the patient, who had to undergo a second implant. It failed, too, resulting in an unintended dose to the rectum. Regulators knew nothing of this second mistake because no one reported it.

Two years later, in 2005, Dr. Kao rewrote another surgical plan after putting half the seeds in the wrong organ. Once again, regulators did not object.

Had the government responded more aggressively, it might have uncovered a rogue cancer unit at the hospital, one that operated with virtually no outside scrutiny and botched 92 of 116 cancer treatments over a span of more than six years — and then kept quiet about it, according to interviews with investigators, government officials and public records.

The team continued implants for a year even though the equipment that measured whether patients received the proper radiation dose was broken. The radiation safety committee at the Veterans Affairs hospital knew of this problem but took no action, records show.

One patient was the Rev. Ricardo Flippin, a 21-year veteran of the Air Force. “I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t stand,” he said, citing rectal pain so severe that he had to remain in bed for six months, losing his church job and his income.

Pastor Flippin first learned of what his doctors called a radiation injury not from the V.A., but from an Ohio hospital where he underwent rectal surgery in 2006 to treat the damage. “There are times when I don’t have control over my bowels,” he said one recent Sunday, after excusing himself during a service at a church in West Virginia where he now preaches.

The 92 implant errors resulted from a systemwide failure in which none of the safeguards that were supposed to protect veterans from poor medical care worked, an examination by The New York Times has found.
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13 comments // More mistakes uncovered at V.A. Hospitals.

  • tbowman131
    • 0
      tbowman131  

    • this is why i don't want socialized medicine... and why NO ONE is proposing it. most americans don't understand the subtle difference between socialized medicine (like the VA, where the government owns the hospitals, hires the doctors, and generally run the business) and single-payer health care (like medicare, where the government acts solely as the insurance company and does not provide care).

      single-payer is the only way to go.

    • 8 months ago
  • loco
  • montesooma
    • 0
      montesooma  
    • tbowman131:

      Because there is no difference. Medicare is not an insurance, that was a hoax from the beginning, the govnment simply uses tax revenue from one man to pay another mans medicine. It is a ponzi scheme that can only be pushed off for so long until it collapses.
      They should honor bernie madoff or make him a senator, for he was only doing what they have been doing since roosevelt.
      If you think govnment won't end up mandating every aspect of healthcare, even rationing treatment, you are very gullible.

    • 8 months ago
  • tbowman131
    • 0
      tbowman131  
    • tbowman131:

      medicare IS an insurance program. it's under the Social Security Administration, which has the official name of the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.

      ponzi schemes and insurance programs are totally different.

    • 8 months ago
  • evoleon
    • 0
      evoleon  
    • tbowman131:

      I think what he is saying is that we all have to pay for it while only a few benefit from it. I have paid taxes for years without receiving it. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme as the only way to fuel the ever growing demands is to increase the population/taxes. The government accountants have figured out that there is no way to pay for the baby boomers' healthcare when they get older. If you are under 45 you will never see any Social Security money for retirement.

    • 8 months ago
  • montesooma
    • 0
      montesooma  
    • tbowman131:

      You have been duped, there is no insurance it is a farce.
      If this were an insurance for old age paid by your earnings and employer and protected by the govnment, it would be for you always, but that is not case.
      It is a box containing trillions in IOU's that the taxpayer will have to make good on.
      The money has already been spent i assure you.
      That letter you get from the ssi is dishonest.
      Any healthcare that the govnment takes over will just be added to the trillions it is already indebted.
      It is exactly a ponzi scheme that pushes it's payoff on FUTURE generations.
      There is no disputing this, it has already been admitted.

    • 8 months ago
  • tbowman131
    • 0
      tbowman131  
    • tbowman131:

      social security and medicare are insurance plans. in ALL insurance plans, individuals pay premium from which they may not get any benefit. it's not a scam, it's not a ponzi scheme, it's a way of spreading risk in order to bring down premiums for all members of the plan.

      the baby boomer problem was "solved" back in the early 80s by creating the social security trust fund. the baby boomers would be the only generation that would pay not only for their parents generations retirement, but also their own. that is why the trust fund is SUPPOSED to go away around 2040. at that point, it will go back to a "pay-as-you-go" system.

      if the trust fund is full of IOU's, as many claim, then that is NOT the fault of the program, but of politicians realizing that inter-governmental-agency lending doesn't have to count against the national debt. who raided the trust fund most prolifically? ronald reagan and george w...

      how do so many americans not even know the history of their own social programs?

    • 8 months ago
  • evoleon
  • evoleon
  • loco
    • 0
      loco  
    • evoleon:

      brother you shoud try it. The Congress of the usa makes laws to protect me. I am 100% service connected and the people in charge are responsible for my care by law.It looks to me that they have plenty of money, but they are building Starbucks Coffee Cafes in the lobby and having ICE CREAM SOCIALS and leaving the left over change for our care. would you Please, if you see them to please ask them to leave me bit more so I can at least afford a cup of coffee. later LOCO

    • 8 months ago
  • loco
    • 0
      loco  

    • After years of hoping that some things @ the veteran hosp. might change. I now get my care in a 3rd. world nation and i heal in 8 days.In 2006 I was in the VAMC in Washington for a knee replacement which almost killed me. I was there for 10 months,had 19 operations,4 staff infections and lost a leg. I never healed in the hosp. It took a real professional to give me my first shower in 10 months at my home. Yes "I saying they never washed me" I wonder why I didn't heal in the hospital. Maybe someone might give me the reason? Now I tried to by taking a camera from Fox NEWS into VAMC but still they haven't corrected the problems affecting veterans. And by the way I have HEP-C "how about that". I would hope not for me but for many others that have to use the VA. My brothers and sisters who are in harms way might get better care.(I hope so) Thanks

    • 8 months ago
  • montesooma
  • Ian_Monet
    • 0
      Ian_Monet  

    • Kind of makes you wonder if the military is attempting to cull its own to shrink its active duty force, thereby necessitating additional private mercenary firms.

    • 8 months ago

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