Palo Alto VA Hospital under fire

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 21, 2007 (KGO) (KGO) -- A Congressional inquiry is charging that the VA Hospital in Palo Alto has been rejecting severely injured patients.

One of the issues is whether the facility is 'cherry picking' patients, meaning they are accepting some, and rejecting others with severe brain injuries. The other issue is the quality of care some veterans are getting there and accusations that it isn't what it should be.

In September, Army Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson was honored with a Bronze Star in Iraq. Wilkerson suffered severe brain injuries when his Humvee was blown up by insurgents. Doctors successfully treated his wounds.

Wilkerson is one of many veterans who've been helped by the VA Hospital in Palo Alto. In fact, this hospital, with its state of the art programs for war related injuries, has been praised as the crown jewel of the VA Medical System.

However, one of its most important rehabilitation programs has come under sharp criticism by the House Veterans Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

The Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center provides specialized care for the most severely wounded veterans, many with traumatic brain injuries like Wilkerson.

It is one of only four such units in the VA Hospital System. The others are in Florida, Virginia and Minnesota. During a hearing in September, the subcommittee revealed that in the first half of this year, while the other three centers were running at almost 100 percent capacity, Palo Alto's unit filled only 60 percent of its beds.

"They were rejecting our soldiers who should have been admitted there," says Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida.

Chairman Harry Mitchell of Arizona said his subcommittee found that "Palo Alto would not accept minimally responsive brain injured patients, while the other three did so, until the VA effectively forced Palo Alto to accept these patients."

Brown-Waite believes the hospital has been cherry picking, by choosing patients who are easier to treat to maintain high success rates.

"I think Palo Alto played games with our soldiers -- our wounded warriors and that's just wrong."

Dr. Stephen Ezeii-Okoye, is the Deputy Chief of Staff at the Polytrauma Center. He claims that the center accepts 80-percent of referrals. He says that patients who were not admitted had other issues that would have interfered with their treatment.

"What we did was to find them a more appropriate setting for treatment. For example, patients who have post traumatic stress disorder, that would interfere with their ability to participate or learn effectively, needed to go through that treatment first."

Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite disagrees.

"I don't buy that. You can have a multi-disciplinary approach to a patient. That's exactly what they should have had."

The subcommittee also reported that the VA's own investigative agency found "disarray, morale problems and lack of leadership" at Palo Alto.

"I'm not familiar with that. I would say that's not a characterization of this hospital. This hospital is run very well and the care has been exemplary," says Dr. Stephen Ezeii-Okoye.

Carol Blake emphatically disagrees.

"Incompetence. The level of incompetence was very high at the facility."

Blake's son, Brandon Gauvreau, suffered traumatic brain injury when he was stationed at McCord Air Force Base in Washington.

"I just passed out because I couldn't hear or see anything," says Brandon.

After surgery, the 19-year-old was transported to Palo Alto for rehabilitation. At the time, he was still in a coma. Blake says the care he received was substandard.

His mother says one nurse didn't even know how to insert a feeding tube, causing her comatose son terrible pain.

"When they pushed things through that tube, he was arching his back all the way off the bed and he would break out in these sweats and start shaking."

Blake says her son developed a serious infection, which required surgery to remove the bone flap from one side of his head. She says if she didn't insist on tests, doctors never would have diagnosed it in time. Blake finally transferred her son to a private hospital in Seattle.

ABC7 News has spoken with families of other injured veterans, who like Blake, pulled their loved ones out of the Palo Alto Polytrauma Center.

Among them is Linda Orten. Her son, John Smith, was stationed in Iraq when he suffered a blood clot in his head. She also says he received poor care in Palo Alto.

He is now in a private rehab center in Washington, where Orten says his condition has improved significantly.

Army Sgt. Michael Emory was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq. His wife, Maria, says his rehab care at Palo Alto was so bad, she had to spend nights in his hospital room to insure he got proper treatment.

He is now at Bethesda Naval Hospital, awaiting more surgery.

The union that represents the Palo Alto VA Hospital's workers says its members have been retaliated against for making similar complaints about inadequate care and lack of management leadership.

The union issued a written statement, asking the hospital to appoint "a qualified and credentialed physician to head up the polytrauma unit" They say their concerns "have fallen on deaf ears."

Dr. Ezeii-Okoye says he can only respond in general terms, because privacy laws prevent him from commenting on patients and employees.

"We've had very high patient satisfaction rates and very high employee satisfaction rates and those things happen to go hand in hand."

We have asked the families we profiled in this story to allow the hospital to respond to their complaints. As for the Congressional inquiry, Ezeii-Okoye says the hospital is evaluating the feedback from the hearings.

"We looked at it as an opportunity to be better and make sure that we are offering our services to anyone who would need it."

As for Brandon, his mother says his condition has improved dramatically since she moved him to the private hospital.

"In two weeks he's able to walk with minimal assist. In two weeks. This is truly acute rehab."

Congresswoman Waite-Brown says the Veterans Affairs Committee is now monitoring the occupancy rate at the Palo Alto Polytrauma Center. She says the hospital has made progress since the hearing in September, but she still is not satisfied.

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