Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993                   TAG: 9306150005
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RESULTS OF PROBE ON UNION CHARGES EXPECTED IN JULY

Robb called for a General Accounting Office investigation into union claims that low employee morale, staffing shortages and mismanagement had led to poor patient care.

The investigation began last June, after the GAO conducted a preliminary review of managerial issues and how they carried over into the medical center's quality of care.

Jim Carlan, assistant director for quality care in the GAO's human resources division, said Friday that the report is on its way to the VA central office for comment. The agency has 30 days to provide a written response, he said.

The response will be incorporated into a final report. The report then goes to Robb, who will release its contents, Carlan said.

Carlan said he could not comment yet on the GAO's findings.

The GAO also launched an investigation, at Robb's request, into disappearances of patients from VA hospitals nationwide.

Carlan said that report is being drafted in the GAO's Dallas office. In early July, it will be submitted to the VA central office in Washington for comment.

The GAO investigation was the only one conducted by an outside agency. In the months following the first news conference by the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA conducted four investigations of medical center problems.

They included an investigation into patient disappearances that led to a complete overhaul of the medical center's patient-search policy.

The policy received its first major test in December, when a 60-year-old patient with unrestricted privileges walked off his ward in an attempt to get to his home in Christiansburg. VA administrators called off the search several hours after he disappeared because of record-cold temperatures and darkness.

The patient's body was found on the grounds the following morning. He had died of exposure.

Robb said at the time that the search for that patient was "reasonable under the circumstances."

Police were not notified the night the patient disappeared because he had left the hospital twice before and gone home, VA administrators said.

"Why call out a full-scale search by police for a gentleman whose pattern has been to leave and end up at home?" the hospital's chief of medical services said.