Federal authorities are stepping up investigations at Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers due to a sharp increase in opioid theft, missing prescriptions or unauthorized drug use by VA employees since 2009, according to government data obtained by the Associated Press.
Doctors, nurses or pharmacy staff at federal hospitals – the vast majority within the VA system – siphoned away controlled substances for their own use or street sales, or drugs intended for patients simply disappeared.
Aggravating the problem is that some VA hospitals have been lax in tracking drug supplies. Congressional auditors said spot checks found four VA hospitals skipped monthly inspections of drug stocks or missed other requirements. Investigators said that signals problems for VA’s entire network of more than 160 medical centers and 1,000 clinics, coming after auditor warnings about lax oversight dating back to at least 2009.
The drug thefts will be among the challenges facing newly confirmed VA Secretary David Shulkin, who served as the department’s undersecretary of health while the drug problem was growing. At his confirmation hearing this month, Shulkin said he was proud that the VA identified the opioid addiction problem before others did and “recognized it as a crisis and began to take action.”
The inspector general’s office estimates there are nearly 100 open criminal probes involving theft or loss of VA controlled substances.
Three VA employees were charged this month with conspiring to steal prescription medications including opioids at the Little Rock, Ark., VA hospital. The inspector general’s office says a pharmacy technician used his VA access to a medical supplier’s web portal to order and divert 4,000 oxycodone pills, 3,300 hydrocodone pills and other drugs at a cost to the VA of $77,700 and a street value of $160,000.