‘Dirty and damaged’ hospital cited for wasting tax dollars

Topline: The North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Affairs health clinic has a $2 billion annual budget, but its three buildings have “unlabeled broken equipment, dirty and damaged items in clean storage areas, unclean patient care locations … dirty food storage area, and expired supplies,” according to an audit from the VA inspector general.

Key facts: The Gainesville healthcare facility is the largest of 1,321 owned by the VA and has 611 available beds.

Auditors found that the clinic does not have enough space to store broken equipment. Staff placed it in available rooms and often “forgot or were too busy” to label it as broken. The deputy director of the clinic said they were not aware that staff were putting dirty and broken equipment in clean storage areas.

Some patient care areas were so “dirty” that they may “cause the spread of illness to patients and staff.” Food storage areas were also so dirty that they “may spread pathogens, such as bacteria and mold to patients and staff,” the audit claimed. Other rooms had chipped paint and exposed piping.

The inspector general found five other issues that were already identified in 2022 by The Joint Commission, the nonprofit that accredits health centers. Among them was the clinic storing its full and empty oxygen tanks together, which could make it take longer to find a full tank during an emergency. The storage room also has expired supplies that could have “degraded packaging or reduced quality.”

Background: Veterans Affairs doctors are the highest paid in the entire federal government. Of the 956 federal workers that outearned the president’s salary of $400,000 last year, 939 worked for the VA, including four dentists.

Salaries have been steadily increasing for years. In 2019, no one in the VA made $400,000.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

Summary: Our veterans deserve the best healthcare possible. If a health clinic is going to spend $2 billion from taxpayers every year, the facility should be spotless.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com