CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Only COVID-19 and intensive care patients are currently being admitted to the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Harrison County, part of a “safety stand down” following the murders of at least eight veterans between 2017 and 2018.
Other new patients have gone to nearby VA facilities and other hospital sites as the VA takes a series of steps designed to restore trust in the Clarksburg facility following a report on patient safety issues and site culture from the VA’s Administrative Investigation Board.
The changes come with a full operations report from the VA Office of Inspector General still pending.
Tony O’Dell, an attorney who is representing survivors of many of the veterans who were given insulin they did not need, said such steps are long overdue.
“Here we are, two and a half years later, and they’re just now really starting the process, it looks like, of trying to make changes and that’s just really unacceptable,” said O’Dell during an appearance on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
Doctor Richard Stone, executive in charge for the Veterans Health Administration, announced the changes on Dec. 24, 2020.
Beginning next week on Jan. 4, Barbara Forsha, deputy director of the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, will take over as the Clarksburg VA’s acting medical director.
Forsha replaces Dr. Glenn Snider, Jr., the medical center director.
In the past, Snider has defended the VA and blamed the deaths on one rogue employee.
But O’Dell said there were clear systemic issues that allowed that employee to repeatedly kill veterans.
“It was very easy for us to see, all the way back at the beginning, that this hospital did not acknowledge or identify their sentinel events which is when there is an untoward death or injury at the hospital that’s unexplained which means they need to do a root cause investigation,” he said.
“They are sort of finally recognizing it.”
Retraining was planned for employees on the reporting of urgent issues and the chain of command.
Other measures included making a recently hired physician, an experienced hospitalist in the community, the hospital’s new inpatient director of hospitalists.
At the same time, a detailed nursing leadership team was being brought into the facility.
“Hopefully, trust is brought back to that facility because our veterans deserve it,” O’Dell said.
In February, a former nursing assistant, Reta Mays, 46, is scheduled to be sentenced for seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder.
Mays faces consecutive life sentences on seven murder counts plus another 20 years for the assault count.
Earlier this year, Mays admitted in U.S. District Court in Clarksburg to injecting as many as eight veterans with insulin they were not prescribed and did not need. Her guilty pleas followed a two-year investigation.
Officials found Mays should not have had access to insulin.
“They have all of these great policies and procedures in place, they just weren’t being followed,” O’Dell said.
O’Dell said he believed the death count may be higher than the eight victims identified in the criminal counts against Mays. He said there were nine confirmed deaths up to this point and, in addition to that number, he was working on eleven other potential cases.
Recently, O’Dell said his office received Mays’ work schedule for comparison.
Tony O’Dell, Attorney representing a number of the families whose loved ones were murdered by Reta Mays at the VA Hospital in Clarksburg, joins @HoppyKercheval to discuss the changes announced for the VA. WATCH: https://t.co/wkudfIRZCB pic.twitter.com/EitcVR341Y
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) December 28, 2020