WASHINGTON — The acting Veterans Affairs secretary said Tuesday that unsanitary conditions found at a Utah department hospital last week are further evidence that Congress must make more outside care options available to veterans.
The comments come a day after outside critics accused Robert Wilkie, named acting secretary by President Donald Trump five weeks ago, of advancing plans to privatize critical department missions in an effort to scale back government bureaucracy and responsibilities.
In a press statement Tuesday afternoon, Wilkie said that pictures of a cluttered, trash-filled room at the Salt Lake City VA hospital made public in recent days were “simply unacceptable,” and promised that “our team there and across all of VA is doubling down to ensure that exam rooms and other treatment areas meet VA’s strong standards.”
The photos came to light after Stephen Wilson, a self-described Trump supporter, posted them on social media with commentary calling the conditions “unprofessional, unsanitary and disrespectful.”
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The pictures were taken by his son Christopher, who appeared on Fox News Tuesday to talk about the incident.
“I’ve been dealing with VA for about 10 years,” the Iraq War veteran said. “They’re usually pretty clean, but this was pretty disturbing.”
In the pictures, medical supplies are open on a counter, a garbage can is overflowing with disposable bed pads, and what appears to be plaster for casts is sitting in an open sink.
Local VA officials have launched an investigation into the incident. Wilkie said he has also directed hospital leaders to provide a six-month follow-up visit for the veteran, after he said in the interview that one could not be scheduled until early 2019.
But Wilkie said the family’s reaction to the incident serves as “an important reminder how critical community care is for our nation’s veterans, particularly in rural areas common in states like Utah and Montana.”
“With funding for VA’s Choice program set to run out soon, America’s veterans need Congress to come together now to support this crucial program and pass legislation before Memorial Day that will make it permanent,” he said. “Veterans like Chris Wilson deserve no less.”
Wilkie has been pushing for lawmakers to deal with VA’s outside care programs in recent weeks, in part because of a looming deadline for the Choice program. Funding for it is set to run out in early June, and VA leaders say tens of thousands of medical appointments will be disrupted without new appropriations.
The acting VA secretary has repeatedly called for making the Choice program permanent, while lawmakers have been considering replacing it with a simplified, consolidated community care program.
Critics say the Choice program, which was set to expire last summer before Congress extended it, was meant to be a temporary fix to VA’s access issues, and keeping it going forever will siphon off funds from other needed department reforms.
A day earlier, officials from the left-leaning advocate group VoteVets filed a lawsuit against Wilkie, saying he was improperly appointed as head of the department and his decisions in the role should be voided. Wilkie, who is also the Defense Department’s top personnel and readiness official, bypassed Deputy VA Secretary Thomas Bowman for the spot.
“There is a campaign being led by Donald Trump and his allies to destroy and privatize the VA health system,” said Will Fischer, director of government relations for VoteVets. “The arrival of Mr. Wilkie into VA is part of that campaign … The president’s vision of what VA should look like is a voucherized, privatized system.”
Wilkie’s predecessor, former VA Secretary David Shulkin, has said repeatedly he believes he was fired because he opposed efforts of political operatives within the administration who favored aggressively outsourcing veterans care into the private sector.
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White House officials have called those claims ridiculous, but have also insisted that more community care options and “choice” are critical to ensuring proper health care for the nation’s veterans.
A RAND Corporation study last week found the VA health care system performs similar to or better than private sector systems on most measures of inpatient and outpatient care quality “although there is high variation in quality across individual VA facilities.”
Wilkie’s department also released a statement last week stating that since Shulkin’s firing, “employees who were wedded to the status quo and not on board with this administration’s policies or pace of change have now departed VA.”
White House physician Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s pick to permanently replace Shulkin, dropped out of the confirmation process last week after allegations of unprofessional behavior surfaced. Military officials are reviewing those claims for possible action.
Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies. His work has earned numerous honors, including a 2009 Polk award, a 2010 National Headliner Award, the IAVA Leadership in Journalism award and the VFW News Media award.
