It’s easy to misplace a $10 calculator, and people lose cell phones all the time. But it’s pretty rare to lose a refrigerator.

That’s exactly what the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Central-Western Massachusetts Healthcare system managed to do. An investigative news team looked into hundreds of pages of “lost and found” records from 2010 to 2016 and found nearly $1 million worth of missing items, including several refrigerators.

The list of nearly 1,200 items includes everything from a $15 USB drive to a $13,000 hospital bed. Some equipment on the list is labeled “lost,” some “stolen,” and other items were “disposed without proper paperwork.” Other disappearing items were reported to the police. Among the missing equipment:

• A $2,300 refrigerator missing with “no reason listed.”
• A $2,300 projector that “cannot be found for many years.”
• $20,000 worth of tablets, dozens of printers and desktops and more than $60,000 worth of laptops.
• Dozens of hospital beds ranging from $200 to $13,000 each.
• A rowing machine labeled “missing for many years.”
• Around two dozen dishwashers, washing machines and dryers
• Fifteen televisions
• A $600 air conditioning window unit.

Whether the supplies were stolen, lost, improperly disposed or simply sprouted legs and walked off, this is just the latest example of the VA’s mismanagement.

It’s time to bring some much-needed accountability to the VA system. That’s why we need the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 currently being debated in the Senate. Learn more about the bill and tell your lawmakers to support VA reform here.

The post #VAFail – Refrigerators, Hospital Beds, Dishwashers All Go Missing at VA Health Center appeared first on Concerned Veterans for America.