He quoted from this recent Washington Post story, "VA uses patient privacy to go after whistleblowers, critics say":
Citing patient privacy, managers have threatened VA employees or retaliated against those who complain about agency misconduct, according to a key congressman and the union that represents most of the department’s employees.
“VA routinely uses HIPAA as an excuse to punish into submission employees who dare to speak out,” said Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. He is leading a probe into the coverup of long wait times for VA patients.
David Borer, the American Federation of Government Employees’ top lawyer, listed a number of cases involving a VA claim of patient privacy used to stifle whistleblowers in a June letter to the department.
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which investigates whistleblower retaliation cases, is “very concerned about the misuse of HIPAA,” said Eric Bachman, an OSC deputy special counsel. “The potential chilling effect of even a small number of these HIPAA retaliation cases is a serious issue and one that should be addressed by the VA in short order.”…
Valerie Riviello is one VA employee who felt the lash of the department’s culture of retaliation.
A registered nurse at the Albany Stratton VA Medical Center in Upstate New York, Riviello said she was threatened with suspension and stripped of managerial duties after she complained last November about how a veteran was treated.
Riviello said the vet was unnecessarily restrained, with an arm and leg strapped to bedposts.
“They scared the hell out of me,” Riviello said with worry clear in her voice. “They sent me a letter saying I could go to jail.”
That threat came in the form of an e-mail to Riviello’s lawyer, Cheri L. Cannon, a partner with the Tully Rinckey law firm. The VA e-mail said that information Riviello provided Cannon “unlawfully includes medical records of a VA patient” and noted that violating HIPAA “is a felony offense subject to imprisonment and a fine of up to $250,000.”If the government punishes whistleblowers, it's all the more remarkable that they are still willing to speak out. Which is all the more reason to punish those covering-up misdeeds, not those doing the right thing.
