Rima Nelson disappeared from public view after the St. Louis Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital she managed potentially exposed 1,800 patients to HIV, was closed twice for serious medical safety issues, and ranked dead last in patient satisfaction.
But Nelson wasn’t fired. Her VA superiors hid her literally on the other side of the Earth in 2013 at the department’s only foreign facility, a seldom-used clinic inside the palatial U.S. Embassy in the Philippine capital city of Manila.
She resides in a government-provided condo and gets the same $160,000 salary she made in St. Louis, which allows her to live like royalty in a country where the average person makes only $2,500 a year.
The Manila VA office provides outpatient care and disability checks to the few surviving Filipino World War II veterans who fought alongside Americans against the Japanese. The occasional American veteran who happens to be in the country can also get outpatient care in the Manila VA facility.
The Government Accountability Office questioned in 2011 whether the office was still needed since the last members of the WWII generation of vets were rapidly dying.
On Monday, The Daily Caller News Foundation published a story and database documenting VA’s “bad bosses merry-go-round,” in which the department attempts to solve problems at one facility by bringing in a director who is often fleeing problems at another facility. The merry-go-round exists because civil service rules make it costly and time-consuming to fire top government managers.
Nelson — one of nearly 100 top VA managers TheDCNF found were transferred between three or more states within eight years — became director of the St. Louis facility in February 2009. In mid-2010, its dental unit shut down for a time after the hospital notified 1,800 vets that issues with sterilizing dental equipment could have exposed them to HIV and hepatitis.
Earlene Johnson, a medical device tech, told Congress she tried to warn management starting in March 2009, but no one listened. Johnson was then fired by the VA in retaliation, Johnson testified.
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Maybe it's time to change those civil service rules so that we aren't stuck with poor performers like this one. You either can do the job or you can't. There are qualified people waiting in the wings for these jobs.
ReplyDeleteI hope that she enjoys her permanent paid vacation until her retirement.
This IMHO is a fraudulent US expenditure. They should be fired and they would loose their salary and all Government benefits and retirement. This would be more of a deterrent than anything. Where is the Politians or are they scared for their jobs, since they become term limits with no retirement or benefits after their term expires.
ReplyDeleteincompetence starts at the top{the white house],and like b.s. flows downhill if our fearless leader makes gross mistakes in his actions and is not held accountable for them,why should lower emplyees worry about getting canned for their same incompetence the good ol boy club is at it again
ReplyDelete