Even being a veteran who uses the VA for most of my health care, I'm having a problem understanding why VA caregivers should be held to a "higher standard" than those who work in non-VA hospitals. Anyone who steals drugs from patients and knowingly puts patients at risk of infection should be drawn and quartered, regardless of where they work.
Reported incidents of drug losses or theft at federal hospitals jumped from 272 in 2009 to 2,926 in 2015, before dipping to 2,457 last year, according to DEA data obtained by AP. “Federal hospitals” include the VA’s more than 1,100 facilities as well as seven correctional hospitals and roughly 20 hospitals serving Indian tribes.
2,457 incidents across 1,127 facilities. And I'm sure most of these facilities are large -- the VA hospital I go to is huge. Maybe not that many in-patient beds, but between in-patients, same-day surgery, and all the clinics they operate, thousands of patients go through there every day. So we get basically two incidents per day per facility? Not good, of course, but in fact a lot less than I would expect.