Following a call for more accountability initiated by Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, President Donald Trump recently inked an executive order establishing the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“(Creation of the) office sends a strong signal to the VA bureaucracy that new leadership is serious about creating a culture of discipline and accountability,” Americans for Prosperity, based in Arlington, Virginia, said in a release.
Shulkin stands out from previous VA administrators as the first to demand greater accountability systems and more authority to enforce firing power in cases of wrongdoing, the release said.
With the hope of correcting the VA’s accumulated examples of dysfunction in recent years — from stealing to distorting information to failing to sanitize equipment — Congress has taken the first steps toward repairing the department’s malfeasances, the release said. The House passed the VA Accountability First Act of 2017 (HR 1259) in March; now the Senate has received the measure.
Among the act’s benefits will be a decrease in the amount of time required to wait before handling negligence among workers. One recent example of the department’s standing procedures spotlighted a VA employee who continued to receive approximately a month’s salary while awaiting disciplinary action for watching pornography while working with a patient, the release said.
In the release, Americans for Prosperity urged citizens to contact their respective U.S. senators and encourage them to support the VA Accountability First Act of 2017.
Alerts Sign-up