Lujan Grisham wants more oversight of VA operations

Despite recent gains made in improving medical services at some of the nation’s veterans health care centers, U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she wants an independent monitor overseeing their operations.

Lujan Grisham, an Albuquerque Democrat who is running for governor, has introduced a bill that would create a new independent health monitor office with representatives who would quickly address continuing problems at any medical health center that receives a rating of under three stars in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ 1-through-5 facility rating system.

“If we hire somebody from the outside who is independently looking at all those centers, he or she can be more of an advocate for productive change and less one who is defending the hospital,” Lujan Grisham said during a phone interview earlier this month. “And that can shift the emphasis for change considerably.”

She said the lack of outside review of veteran medical centers leads to delays in enacting corrective action. The health monitor office would report to the U.S. Attorney General’s office.

The Fixing VA Facilities Act, as the bill is known, requires the health monitor office to act within 60 days of the annual end-of-year ratings to identify problems and solutions for those problems at one- and two-star health care facilities. That office will then deliver the report to the director of the medical centers in question, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, the com-

mittees on veterans affairs in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the representative who represents patients who are served by those medical centers.

Then, within 180 days of submitting that report, the health monitor office will follow up with an update on what the medical center did to address the problems and whether those actions led to an improved rating.

The topic of ensuring proper medical care for military veterans most recently arose following a series of 2014 investigative reports that revealed a wide range of problems — including long waiting times for appointments and the manipulation of medical reports — at the nation’s 730-some veterans’ hospitals and outpatient clinics.

At that time, the report said more than 1,000 veterans in New Mexico waited for over three months for an initial appointment.

A 2017 Veterans Affairs updated report said 64 percent of the veteran medical centers — 146 in all — had since showed improvement. For example, Albuquerque’s Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center’s rating improved from a 1 to a 2 in the five-star rating system.

A U.S. Department of Military Affairs update on waiting times at that center says the average waiting time for veterans at the Albuquerque facility is 32 days. That report says the average waiting time at the Santa Fe VA Clinic is 19 days. At the Taos VA Clinic, that figure is 57 days, and at the Española VA Clinic it is 24 days.

“Those averages are improving,” said Lujan Grisham. “But if you are really sick and at risk of suicide — and we have had people who cannot get in who have in fact been suicide victims — they need to do better.

“I won’t be satisfied until you get the right care at the right time at the right place.”

The bill has since been referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and then referred to the Subcommittee on Health.

Sonja Brown, associate director of the New Mexico VA Health Care System, said in an email Thursday that she had not seen or reviewed the bill and could not comment.