Large Bonuses to Veteran's Hospital Employees Despite Scandals at Many VA Hospitals
Thursday, November 12th, 2015 -- 8:13 AM
(Marshfield News Herald) -The Department of Veterans Affairs doled out more than $142 million in bonuses to executives and employees for performance in 2014 even as scandals over veterans' health care and other issues racked the agency.Among the recipients was Dr. David Houlihan, the former chief of staff at the VA medical center in Tomah, Wis., whom veterans nicknamed the "Candy Man" because of his prolific prescribing of narcotics. He got a $4,000 bonus in December.
That was nine months after an inspector general's report concluded he was prescribing alarmingly high amounts of opiates. And it was four months after 35-year-old Marine Corps veteran Jason Simcakoski of Stevens Point died of "mixed-drug toxicity" as an inpatient at Tomah after he was prescribed a fatal cocktail of medications, including opiates. The inpatient pharmacist supervisor also received a $1,050 bonus in December.
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