Lawmakers call for VA hospital changes following fourth suicide

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Lawmakers call for VA hospital changes following fourth suicide
By Misty Williams
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Posted: 6:38 p.m. Friday, May 10, 2013

The head of the U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs said Friday that top leaders at the Atlanta VA Medical Center clearly had “something to hide” after failing to reveal the suicide of a Georgia veteran at the hospital last fall.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and four Georgia congressmen toured the 405-bed facility in Decatur on Monday in response to recent federal inspection reports linking the deaths of three veterans to pervasive mismanagement of the hospital’s mental health unit.

When Miller asked hospital officials whether there were any other patient deaths Congress should know about, he said he was told, “No.” But last November, hospital staff discovered Army veteran Joseph Petit, 42, locked in a hospital bathroom dead in his wheelchair, a plastic trash bag tied over his head with a blue cord around his neck, a medical examiner’s report shows.

Petit’s suicide was not included in two audits released last month by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.