Several whistleblowers who exposed the Veteran appointment manipulation scandal revealed to the House Veterans Affairs Committee they were retaliated against at several VA facilities.
Four whistleblowers, including doctors and employees, said Tuesday they were insulted, harassed and sometimes denied their paychecks as punishment for reporting the intentional delaying of Veteran appointments, MSNBC reported.
"I was labeled a rat," Dr. Christian Head, a former employee at the VA center in Los Angeles, said of a picture that was posted at a party showing him with his middle finger up and a VA IG phone number.
The picture was shown after Head testified about a fraud case, MSNBC reported.
One unidentified woman suffered a "stress heart attack" due to the way she was treated, a committee staff member told BuzzFeed. The woman eventually left her job and was forced to be away from her family for two years while she searched for employment.
It took nearly three hours for the VA whistleblowers to detail the retaliation. Dr. James Tuchschmidt, acting principle deputy secretary for health, could hardly express his outrage over what he heard.
"I'm past being upset and mad and angry about this. I'm very disillusioned and sickened by all this. I can't believe that we're at this point in this organization that I was so proud of and worked so hard to make it a great place," Tuchschmidt said according to The Washington Times.
Their testimonies come after news broke in April that employees at VA centers were told to delay appointments by keeping Veterans off the official patient waiting list, according to MSNBC. Former Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned in late May amidst the scandal.
In the meantime President Barack Obama nominated Robert McDonald as interim VA Secretary on Monday. Congress is also in the process of reviewing legislation to reform the VA system.
