Marion VA Medical Center

WASHINGTON — Veterans’ Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki will walk into a room of angry Illinois members of Congress Wednesday morning.

Shinseki will meet with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and other livid Illinois elected officials in Washington to address persistent problems at the Marion Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center, which were brought back to light by a VA’s inspector general report issued this week.

While the report isn’t quite as harsh as the findings of a January 2008 report — which found 10 examples of poor patient care given to patients who died, among other serious issues — investigators continue to find areas of inadequate care and protocol. The most glaring problems include:

– Two procedures done by employees lacking the proper credentials;

– Record-keeping inconsistencies about the hospital’s number of deaths;

– Inadequate documentation and review of patient cases;

– Inability to implement changes suggested in January 2008 report.

The 2008 report led to the removal of the hospital’s director, chief of staff, chief of surgery and anesthesiologist. The hospital still doesn’t perform major surgical procedures.

In a letter to Shinseki sent Monday, Durbin, fellow Illinois Democrats Sen. Roland Burris and Rep. Jerry Costello, as well as Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus, called the VA’s lapses “simply appalling.”

The four congressmen wrote that Marion VA hospital officials have “violated the public’s trust and should be relieved of their duties until serious questions over management can be answered.”

The VA inspector general’s report lists 10 recommendations for changes at the hospital. In a letter responding to the report, the hospital’s interim director, Warren E. Hill, agreed with every recommendation and said those changes would all be put in place by the end of November.

“VA Medical Center management had identified areas of improvement in most of these areas and was taking action to strengthen these programs,” Hill wrote. “We concur that these programs could be further enhanced through additional improvements.”

Shimkus sought to tie the problems in Marion to the debate over a public option in health insurance reform bills.

“It does speak to government-run,” Shimkus told reporters. “Everybody says government-run health care is great. The problems we’ve had with the VA are disastrous.”