Veterans Affairs documents indicate officials at Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital knew about the black mold infestation in August 2015 but conducted no testing until mid-April 2016 and have yet to clean up the problem – though they are promising to act soon. The mold is contained in two rooms of the Residential Care Facility (RCF), a separate building housing 30 residents for indefinite stays. "I was going by the hallway and the door was open. The back wall was all moldy black," 81-year-old resident Raymond Shibek told FoxNews.com. "I went and told the director of nursing. She said, ‘How did you see that?' I said, ‘The door was open.' She said, ‘You weren't supposed to see that.'" Shibek said the mold covered an entire wall measuring roughly 10 feet-by-10 feet. Resident Dan James, 58, said the staff "sat on this for months until we started getting aggressive about it," and "only taped off the rooms a month and a half ago."
Veterans say no one knows how long the mold has contaminated the building, but they claim a large number of patients have fallen ill, even died, over the past few years. It is unknown if the mold was in any way related to the illnesses. An April 22-dated letter sent to Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and signed by 18 residents in the unit asked for congressional intervention. "Granted, these poor souls (veterans-patients who reside in the RCF unit) are a group of … patients who need around the clock care, but still there seems to be a high number of both staff and patient illnesses, and a very high rate of death for the RCF unit veterans," the letter said.
Kirk, chairman of the Senate Appropriations VA subcommittee, fired off a letter earlier this week to a VA supervisor seeking answers on the mold problem. "The saddest part about this work is that there seems to be no bottom – each time we discover a problem, there always seems to be a cover-up, instances of willful incompetence, and/or another problem right around the corner," he wrote. Kirk previously has criticized Hines management over an infestation of cockroaches in the hospital kitchen, prompting him to author a bill requiring mandatory outside health inspections. The VA says it is moving to address the mold situation.
An internal email dated March 4 from Rita Young, Hines' chief of Safety and Emergency Management Services, was sent to union stewards updating them. Young said the drywall in two rooms contained "black mold" caused by a pipe leak that has been repaired. It took until April 5 for VA officials to post a bid notice asking for "hazardous material abatement." The project will be awarded next month and is expected to be completed in July, VA spokeswoman Jane Moen said. The VA did not comment on the delay in cleaning up the mold other than to say, "Hines takes any allegations regarding patient safety and concerns seriously. Our veterans, staff and visitors are our #1 priority." The VA has not provided any memos or proof that mold testing was conducted prior to the April tests.
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