Drug Thieves at the VA

The Government Accountability Office has found serious problems with the way the Department of Veterans Affairs handles controlled substances and guards against having those drugs stolen by VA employees.

Out of four facilities the GAO was asked to review, one had missed its required monthly inspection of patient-care areas and the pharmacy 43 percent of the time. Three facilities failed follow three of the nine requirements for

handling controlled substances, including verifying that shipments were complete and doing a physical inventory two or three times per week.

One facility only completed one of the nine steps, that of verifying that a substance was dispensed. Two of them could not even verify that controlled substances actually made it from the pharmacy to patient-care areas. If there’s one dangerous hole in the system, this is it.

Consider what happens when an addict pharmacy worker either takes or changes the drugs he or she is to deliver to a hospital ward or surgical unit. There was a case where an employee had been confiscating fentanyl (an anesthetic) destined for surgery patients and was using it for himself — while refilling the vials with saline solution. He apparently was on staff at numerous hospitals in the area, doing the same thing. Not only that, but he was infected with hepatitis C, which he passed on to at least one patient. Another junkie, an emergency-room nurse, gave herself injections of painkillers and then noted on the records that that they had been given to patients.

The GAO report concluded in part that the VA’s “ability to detect diversion and protect its veterans from harm — such as depriving them of needed pain medications — is limited.”

I cringe to think about the patients who didn’t get their pain medication or anesthetic — especially the one about to have surgery. (c) 2017 King Features Synd., Inc.