ALBAMA: As U.S. Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) continues to work toward improving the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System’s (CAVHCS) services, she recently said an important first step is rebuilding the relationship between the CAVHCS and the local medical community.
Roby discussed these and other concerns about the Veterans Administration (VA) during her annual speech at the Montgomery (Alabama) Chamber of Commerce’s Eggs & Issues gathering on Thursday. With more than 400 attendees in the audience, Roby explained that she remains involved in trying to effect change at what has been one of the most troubled VA systems in the nation.
Those problems included waitlist manipulation, missing patient X-rays, falsified pulmonology records, and at least one incident where a VA employee took a recovering veteran to a crack house to use drugs and prostitutes and then tried to extort his VA benefits.“I told you that day that I would not let up on this fight to improve the VA.”
For most of the last year, Roby has been deeply involved with investigations, and has worked with whistleblowers and news outlets to expose major instances of mismanagement, malfeasance and cover-up within CAVHCS. Laws were quickly passed to begin cleaning up the problems within the system; however, action related to these laws has remained slow.
