Ethical Implications of the VA Healthcare Coverup
Jill Kraus
Com/295
January 12, 2015
Kimberly Boyd
Ethical Implications of the VA Healthcare Cover-up
It is hard to believe that a government agencies senior management would go to such extreme measures to cover-up such a huge and glaring set of deficiencies. Especially when it concerns such a highly regarded group of individuals such as war veterans. The foremost deficiency was the extraordinarily long waiting lists for the non-critical care of patients resulting in multiple deaths. The second being the poor standard of care for patients. Lastly a prohibitive amount of complicated paperwork and procedures to be administered for simple care. With these deficiencies comes a few ethical dilemmas. The senior management of the VA healthcare system was covering up wrong doings and deaths to protect their leadership within their hospitals. They also had the audacity to change and delete data in reports and in the VA computer data system to cover the deficiencies after the fact. By doing this it caused a damage to their reputation. It created a culture of distrust between the patients, the providers and the system as well as the voting public. When all this information came to light the first and largest step to correcting all of the deficiencies was replacing the Secretary of Veteran Affairs. A press conference to the public was held after the replacement. Figuring out how to address the public was a great concern. They starting by highlighting some of the good things by example as they were done at various hospital locations such as the Palo Alto location. They also sited some examples of simple miscues such as mailing out flu
