VA orders systemwide checks

WASHINGTON — The VA is ordering its 1,400 hospitals and clinics to report on the quality of their facilities to determine if squalid conditions found at Walter Reed exist elsewhere.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson ordered the top-down review in an internal memorandum sent last week to the VA’s medical center directors. He said “recent events” compelled him to redouble efforts to improve the environment at outpatient center and medical facilities.

“I am directing you hereby to conduct and supervise a full and immediate review of your facility’s environments of care,” Nicholson wrote in the March 7 memorandum, which was obtained Monday. The memo asks for a full report by Wednesday.

“As medical center and network directors, you all are responsible,” he said.

VA spokesman Matt Burns said Nicholson, a 30-year veteran, is committed to serving veterans.

In the last week, Nicholson has hired more personnel to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder and expedited claims for veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also is launching an “aggressive hiring program” to increase staffing by more than 500 benefits employees by June, according to a letter Nicholson submitted to Congress.