Alabama’s Rep. Martha Roby grills VA leadership

U.S. Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) grilled Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson, asking him specifically what his troubled agency was planning to do to fix the flawed Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System (CAVHCS).

“As someone who represents constituents served by arguably the worst VA system in the country, I’m going to be asking, ‘What have you done in central Alabama? What are you going to do?,’” said Roby, a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee providing oversight for VA funding. “Phoenix gets all the headlines, but we have a critical problem in central Alabama.”

Gibson was on Capitol Hill last week asking members of Congress to consider reallocating funds to make up for a shortfall he warns will result in hiring freezes and furloughs. Ironically, on Thursday, the Montgomery Advertiser reported that the CAVHCS has already implemented a hiring freeze on Medical Support and Compliance staff. A lack of skilled workers in important positions has been cited as a big reason for failures at CAVHCS.

“Congress has provided record funding for VA services,” Roby added. “Since I’ve been in Congress, VA spending has increased 22 percent, and that doesn’t count the record appropriations bill the House just passed. And, the VA reform bill we passed last year provided an additional $5 billion specifically for the hiring of staff.”

Roby is currently writing legislation that would direct VA officials at the national level to take over chronically failing facilities like the ones in Central Alabama. Recently, VA clinics in Montgomery and Tuskegee were recently identified as the worst two in the U.S., in terms of extended delays in completed appointments. This would put the responsibility for improvement of these facilities on national VA leaders. Roby said the bill would be introduced in August.