Will bad employees still lingerat VA?

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ new authority to get rid of bad employees is getting a test in Memphis.

An employee at the Memphis VA Medical Center was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and criminal impersonation of a police office. Specifically, she pulled a revolver on a grandmother and a toddler, waving the gun and saying she was the police.

According to the VA, the employee was being processed for removal and has been suspended. What, exactly, does that mean. Taking steps to terminate the employee? Barred from the facility? Told to stay home with pay?

Inquiring minds want to know: Will the Merit Systems Protection Board jump in on this one, too? Long ago the VA tried twice to remove an employee because the hospital kept running out of crucial surgical inventory. The Office of the Inspector General got involved and came up with yet one more reason to get rid of the guy: He’d been sending sensitive VA personnel information to his personal email account and his wife. The guy was fired, but after the Board got involved, the VA had to rehire him. It took quite a while, but finally he is gone.

This is the same place where a veteran getting care had his vehicle stolen from the parking lot by a VA employee. The veteran had to turn over all his personal belongings when he was admitted … including his car keys. Within hours, before his wife could retrieve the car, it was gone. Six months later, the veteran saw his car in the parking lot, called police, and they arrested a VA employee when he came out.

So now we watch and wait. Will pulling a handgun on a little girl and her grandmother be serious enough to get rid of the employee? Does the Accountability Act truly have enough teeth to get the job done?