VA says more Marion surgeons on leave; senator promises legislation

Sen. Dick Durbin pledged Tuesday to push federal legislation to reform hiring practices at Veterans Affairs hospitals nationwide after the VA revealed three more doctors have been placed on leave by an Illinois site that already has stopped performing surgeries.

VA officials who testified Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs did not offer specifics about the three surgeons recently placed on leave at the VA in Marion, Ill.

Scrutiny in Marion has mushroomed since August, when Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez resigned three days after a Kentucky man bled to death following gallbladder surgery the surgeon performed.

Shortly afterward, that hospital suspended inpatient operations because of a spike in post-surgical deaths and reassigned or placed on leave four officials, including the chief of surgery.

The VA says 10 patients died under the care of Veizaga-Mendez, whose Illinois license was indefinitely suspended last month by regulators.

News of the actions involving three more surgeons "is unfortunately a developing pattern of problems of the surgical staff at the Marion VA," Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said after being allowed to take part in the Senate hearing even though he isn't on the panel. "Clearly, this has gone beyond one doctor."

Durbin also said he was struck by the VA's disclosure Tuesday that, since the troubles surfaced in Marion, it has checked the credentials of some 56,000 medical professionals across the VA system and culled 17,000 for additional review.

"That's a lot -- that's about a third," Durbin said. Some of the issues may be purely technical, Durbin acknowledged, "so I don't want to overstate it."

Confronted publicly Tuesday for the first time about the Marion matter, VA administrators deflected the panel's prodding for many specifics about Veizaga-Mendez, citing an unfolding VA Inspector General's probe of the doctor's 20 months at the Marion VA and how he ever got hired there in January 2006.

VA officials insisted the department followed a thorough credentialing process in vetting Veizaga-Mendez. The VA generally verifies information supplied by prospective doctors at any of its some 150 U.S. medical centers through national practitioner databanks and checks for disciplinary alerts by the Federation of State Medical Boards, Gerald Cross, the VA's chief deputy undersecretary for health, told the panel. The VA also checks doctors' references.

Applicant doctors also must be licensed in at least one state; when hired in Marion, Veizaga-Mendez had valid, unrestricted licenses in Massachusetts and Illinois. He also has agreed to stop practicing in Massachusetts.

"I think I can honestly say we have a credentialing system at the VA that is the envy of the health-care industry," added Kate Enchelmayer, a quality standards chief for the Veterans' Health Administration.