At the
Manchester, New Hampshire, VA Medical Center last year, surgeries were canceled
when debris that appeared to be "rust and blood" was found on
instruments doctors were about to use.
At the
Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center last year, the staff ran out of sterilized
instruments, and even bone marrow, and had to borrow them from neighboring
hospitals.
At the West
Los Angeles VA Medical Center, 83 surgeries were cancelled in 2016 because of
fly infestations in operating rooms.
Rep. Phil
Roe, R-Tennessee, a medical doctor and chairman of the House Veterans Affairs
Committee, said he found it amazing that the Veterans Health Administration
within the VA was struggling to fulfill the "most basic function" of
its hospitals: "to make sure you have sterile equipment."
"It's
astonishing to me," Roe said at a hearing Wednesday before the
Subcommittee On Oversight and Investigations.
Roe, who
served two years in the Army Medical Corps, said he had performed or assisted
in thousands of surgeries.
"I
never even thought about it, was the equipment going to be sterile that I'm
using today?" he said.
In response,
Dr. Teresa Boyd, the VA's assistant under secretary for Health for Clinical
Operations, acknowledged the problem but pointed to mitigating data on the
surgical site infection rate.
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