Senator Johnson Calls for OIG Investigation of Tomah VA Medical Center

On Thursday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the VA Office of Inspector General requesting an independent investigation of the mental health clinic at the Tomah VAMC. This request was in response to whistleblower allegations of staffing shortages followed by the death of a 29-year-old veteran who was reportedly denied treatment.

Upon hearing the news of the death of Brian Rossell late Thursday, Sen. Johnson wrote to Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald, who according to his family was denied care recently at the Tomah VA Medical Center’s mental health clinic.

“At the committee’s field hearing in Tomah in May 2016, Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson vowed to improve patient care at the facility, telling the community that, ‘At the end of the day . . . VA leadership owns this,’” Johnson wrote in the letter to McDonald. “While I appreciated Mr. Gibson’s sentiments on behalf of VA leadership, the apparent suicide of Mr. Rossell underscores concerns that the VA has yet to take full ownership of the systemic failures of the Tomah VAMC. In August 2016, a whistleblower contacted my staff to disclose staffing shortages at the facility’s Mental Health Clinic. The whistleblower told my staff that he had already raised these issues internally within the VA and that the VA’s regional office, Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN 12), should have been aware of the shortages. My staff notified the Office of Inspector General (OIG) in August and yesterday I asked Inspector General Missal to conduct a full and independent review of this matter.”

Important links:

• Click here to read Sen. Johnson’s letter to the VA Office of Inspector General.
• Click here for whistleblower resources