By Josh Hicks: The Department of Veterans Affairs this year issued false statements to Congress and the media about treatment delays and how many patients died or suffered as a result of wait times at its health clinics.
The agency’s inspector general this week released a report saying VA issued “several key statements” about its reviews of treatment delays that were “misleading or incorrect.”
One of the agency’s top health officials, Thomas Lynch, acknowledged and apologized for the mistakes in a September 2014 letter to House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.).
According to the inspector general’s report, Lynch made false statements about the reviews at a congressional hearing in April, and VA released incorrect information in a fact sheet for news outlets around the same time.
“It was never my intention to misinform or confuse the committee on this complex issue,” the health official said in his apology to Miller. To read the entire article, click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/12/17/major-messup-how-the-va-gave-congress-and-the-media-false-information/?tid=hpMo