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Problems await head of Fayetteville VA center
Workers have complained about work environment; vets complain about staff
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Published: November 13, 2009
FAYETTEVILLE - The new leadership coming to the Fayetteville VA Medical Center will inherit problems that have plagued the hospital for years.
Yet perhaps the biggest challenge for whoever replaces outgoing Director Bruce Triplett is the perception -- true or not -- that the facility provides substandard care to its thousands of patients in southeastern North Carolina.
Triplett announced his intention to retire last week, just days after a Fayetteville Observer report describing dissatisfaction among employees and patients at the hospital. Also last week, North Carolina congressmen met with VA leaders to demand changes and a written improvement plan for the Fayetteville hospital.
The complaints aren't new. Triplett is the fourth director to leave the Fayetteville VA amid adversity.
In the short term, he will be replaced Nov. 23 by Ralph Gigliotti, who is director of the Durham VA. But the next permanent director of the Fayetteville VA will have to contend with employee complaints about a hostile work environment in which whistle-blowers are targeted for retaliation. Then there are the complaints from veterans and their families, who describe frustration over rude caregivers who sometimes ignore the patients.
Cleansing the hospital's reputation may be the new leader's largest hurdle.
Some patients say they would rather use Tri-Care and have a copay, or make the 90-mile trip to Durham than risk a visit to the Fayetteville VA.
Larry Smith has spent the past 20 years helping companies overcome problems as president of the Institute for Crisis Management in Louisville, Ky.
He said repairing an organization's reputation -- whether it's a hospital, restaurant or gas station -- has to begin at the top and work its way down.
"It may or may not have started at the top, but looking ahead, there has to be a very strong emphasis placed on putting patients and their families first in everything the staff and administration of the hospital does," Smith said. "The quality of service may not have been bad in the first place. If the perception of the quality of service was poor, it wouldn't matter. ... Perception is reality in a way."
The hospital suffers from a shortage of specialists, partly because it is difficult to recruit them to Fayetteville, where the hospital has no affiliation with a research university. Doctors and nurses also earn less working at the VA instead of a private hospital or clinic.
U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge recently expressed concern that the hospital had closed 30 beds for surgery because of a lack of surgeons.
And the secretary of Veterans Affairs replied to U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell's inquiry about the level of care in Fayetteville by explaining that the hospital "has experienced significant hiring challenges within its mental-health program."
That causes more frustration for some veterans required to find transportation to Durham or Salisbury for VA treatment that can't be provided in Fayetteville.
Discord at the Fayetteville VA isn't new. Triplett is the fourth VA director since 1996 to leave Fayetteville amid problems. He replaced Janet Stout, who retired after she and senior administrators were found to have created an appearance of preferential treatment in a number of personnel moves in 2003 and 2004.
Stout had replaced Richard Baltz, who left Fayetteville in October 2000 on the heels of allegations of racism and discrimination at the hospital.
Baltz's predecessor, Jerome Calhoun, exited in 1996 following accusations that he sexually harassed employees. During his tenure, eight Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints were filed against him.
Most of the issues that appeared to lead to a search for a new director haven't been resolved over the years, according to current and former employees.
There's still an atmosphere of cronyism, they say, and work at the hospital still has an uncomfortable racial component.
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