Colmery-O'Neil chief to move on
By Andy Marso
The Topeka-Capital Journal
Tuesday, June 10, 2014

The chief of staff who led Topeka's Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center during a doctor shortage that closed the emergency department is moving on, while a spokesman for the facility says it now has enough staff to reopen the emergency room.

Jim Gleisberg, media relations specialist for the VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System, said Monday that within the past two weeks Rajeev Trehan, Colmery-O'Neil's top doctor, had announced he will be leaving for another VA post. Gleisberg said Sandeep Chhahira, the hospital's deputy chief of staff, also is transferring within the VA system.

Gleisberg said the search for a new chief of staff would begin soon and would be exhaustive.

“It’s going to be a while” before the hospital has a new medical leader, he said.

Trehan, chief of staff since 2004, was in a meeting when contacted for comment Monday morning.

Colmery-O'Neil's top administrator is A. Rudy Klopfer, director of the eastern Kansas system, who was hired last year.

Doctor shortages last year forced the hospital to frequently divert trauma patients away from its dormant ER to other VA facilities in Leavenworth or Kansas City, or to hospitals in Topeka outside the VA system.

That situation led U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka, to send a letter in October expressing concern to Gen. Eric Shinseki, then U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Shinseki since has resigned amid reports of secret patient waiting lists at other VA facilities.

Jenkins, in a statement released by her office Monday, said “there is no doubt" Colmery-O'Neil was "a facility in need of new medical leadership."

"This is a positive development and an opportunity for change for our veterans in Eastern Kansas, but I have concerns with what this means for the overall mismanagement of the VA," Jenkins said. "There is obviously a great deal of work to be done and certainly no grace period for the new leaders at Colmery-O'Neil. However, I am encouraged and look forward to continue working with the hospital to ensure our heroes have the best care possible.”

Trehan, a neurologist, said in August that he believed Colmery-O'Neil was making progress in becoming fully staffed, but at the end of January, emergency services were suspended entirely and the facility's ER became an urgent care unit.

Gleisberg said Monday the hospital has hired enough staff to restore emergency services but has yet to get the review necessary from the VA's central office.

“We’re just waiting,” Gleisberg said.

Gleisberg said Colmery-O'Neil is still "definitely looking for more docs" because VA regulations require an emergency doctor available in reserve.

“We’ve got to make sure we basically over-hire," Gleisberg said. "That’s kind of the status we’re in now, is getting to that over-hire area.”

Gleisberg said the Eastern Kansas VA system would also like to hire a director of emergency services to oversee emergency care at both of the system's major hospitals in Topeka and Leavenworth.

In the past two years, Colmery-O'Neil has lost doctors for a variety of reasons.

Shinseki, responding to the letter from Jenkins, said a review of five departures in quick succession revealed one accepted a promotion at another VA facility, one moved to be closer to family, one retired, one moved when the spouse was relocated and one accepted a higher salary and better work schedule.

Roy Danks, a trauma physician who now works in Great Bend, said he and his wife, who is also a physician, left Colmery-O'Neil in part because of a leadership vacuum and bureaucratic turf wars between departments.

Jose Bejar, a neurologist, lost his medical license last year when he pleaded guilty to sexually molesting female patients at the VA.

Another doctor, Kelly Humpherys, lost her license within a year of being hired at Colmery-O'Neil for misleading state medical board members about prior terminations and suspensions that resulted from concerns about her behavioral health.

The Eastern Kansas VA is undergoing a review by the Office of Inspector General that Gleisberg described as a routine assessment scheduled every three years. Results of an audit of Kansas VA facilities released Monday found that 110 veterans have been waiting for appointments for 90 days or more, but nearly all of them were awaiting care at a Wichita VA hospital.

Six were waiting within the Eastern Kansas VA system.”