Two U.S. congressmen are urging the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish a dedicated task force to investigate issues surrounding misconduct at the Dayton VA Medical Center in Ohio.
In a letter sent April 7 to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) call on the VA to establish the dedicated task force following reports of two patients who tested positive for hepatitis B due to improper infection control practices at the clinic.
This task force would review all of Veterans Integrated Service Network 10's (VISN 10) facilities, activities, and services to help identify how procedural lapses allowed this situation to happen, and what measures can be taken to prevent similar scenarios in the future. VISN 10 includes Ohio and portions of Indiana and Kentucky.
The task force should include healthcare professionals, VA medical professionals and employees, veterans, and leaders in the veteran community, the senators said.
"We must determine how the VA allowed patient care to erode to the point where hundreds of patients in Dayton had to be tested for diseases due to exposure to blood-borne pathogens," Brown said.
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