Progress Illinois

The U.S. Veterans Affairs Administration released the first portion of a three-part report on its Marion, Illinois VA hospital yesterday and found the facility was in desperate need of leadership and oversight.

In the last two years, there have been 19 deaths caused by substandard care at the hospital. Of those, nine have been at least partially linked to one surgeon, Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, who administrators knew was not properly credentialed. The report also found that a former medical center director ignored troubling patient incident reports, failed to establish a follow-up process for patient deaths, and allowed financial considerations to predominate quality-of-care issues.

This follows a VA Inspector General's report that came to similar conclusions earlier this year. Both of Illinois' senators have continually pressured the VA to stop dragging its feet on the investigations into the tragedies of 2006-07 and the failed management-labor relationship at Marion. "This report confirms," Barack Obama said yesterday, "that a failure in leadership and a breakdown of safeguards allowed these tragedies to occur at the Marion VA." Democratic Rep. Jerry Costello and GOP Rep. John Shimkus joined the chorus as well.

Marion is a bad seed in an otherwise well-run system, so privatization is certainly not the answer. But to provide the care wounded soldiers deserve, the VA needs to send better bureaucrats to Southern Illinois.