WASHINGTON, DC: Today, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans (VA-02) released the following statement regarding the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) release of a report entitled, Mismanaged Surgical Privileging Actions and Deficient Surgical Service Quality Management Processes at the Hampton VA Medical Center in Virginia. 

“Unfortunately, the scathing OIG report released yesterday validates our community’s growing concerns about the Hampton VA,” said Congresswoman Kiggans. “Since coming to Congress last year, I have had so many veterans and providers come to me with complaints about patient safety, staff turnover, unsanitary exam rooms, and denials of care. I have worked hard to address those allegations and personally launched Congressional investigations into the surgical practices and management at the facility. The OIG report shines an even brighter light on these problems, demonstrating clear cut leadership failures at the highest levels of the hospital that have directly affected the quality of care available to our veterans.”

“The incompetence demonstrated by Hampton VA leaders over the past several years is completely unacceptable, causing delayed reporting to state licensing boards and failures to provide patients and their families critical information through the institutional disclosure process,” continued Congresswoman Kiggans. “Significant changes must be made to ensure veterans receive quality care deserving of their service to our country. As the granddaughter of a veteran, daughter of a veteran, wife of a veteran, mother of future veterans, and having served 10 years in the Navy myself, I look forward to engaging with new leadership at the hospital as they work to correct these deficiencies and rebuild trust with our veterans in Hampton Roads.”

The report states that investigators “reviewed surgical service and quality management concerns and identified widespread failures and deficiencies related to facility leaders’ responses to clinical care concerns and subsequent privileging actions…” Specifically, the report centers around Hampton VAMC leadership’s failures in the management of clinical care, deficiencies in professional practice evaluations, a lack of surgical service quality management processes, and insufficient institutional disclosure processes. 

The report also revealed delayed actions to correct deficiencies within the surgical services department, and the OIG concluded, “the findings identified through this inspection highlight not only failures of facility leaders to ensure that the required processes were appropriately implemented, but also a lack of leaders’ basic understanding of the processes that support delivery of safe health care.” These findings build upon previous reports the VA OIG released in 2022 and 2023 on delays in diagnosis and treatment and overall failures with the level of service at the Hampton Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC). 

As the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations for the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and as a board-certified Adult-Geriatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, Congresswoman Kiggans has pressed the VA on complaints of patient safety, staffing shortages, denial of care, unsanitary exam rooms, whistleblower retaliation, and more. As a result of the investigation initiated by Chairwoman Kiggans, the VA is making the following personnel and policy changes at the Hampton VA:

• Replacement of the VAMC Director 
• Replacement of the Chief of Staff 
• Replacement of the Chief of Surgery
• Addressing the anesthesiologist shortage 
• Addressing staff moral and allegations of retaliation
• Increasing accountability regarding substandard care
• Ensuring medical facilities are properly cleaned and maintained

Both Congresswoman Kiggans and Congressman Mike Bost (IL-12), Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, released a statement regarding the recent reassignment of the Hampton VAMC Director Dr. Taquisa K. Simmons to the VHA Office of Social Work Services. You can read those statements here.

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