Burst Pipe Floods 5 Levels Of DC VA Medical Center: Report

WASHINGTON, DC -- Five levels of the Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northwest were flooded earlier this month due to a burst pipe, and that incident is just one of many issues at the facility, according to a report.

NBC Washington reports that more than a dozen outpatient procedures had to be postponed as a result of the flooding, and one patient being treated in the intensive care unit had to be transferred.

The incident apparently happened on the morning of May 18 and resulted in a two-hour power outage at the medical center's pharmacy. A burst air cooling pipe on the fourth floor was the culprit, according to the NBC report, which cited agency records.

The flooding soon spread to other levels, forcing crews to shut down power over concerns about the water coming into contact with electrical panels.

Authorities fixed the leak and removed the water, according to the report, which noted that there have been many mishaps at the troubled facility on Irving Street.

The medical center serves tens of thousands of veterans every year, but supply shortages, mismanagement, and other problems have become a theme there. In one case, a patient reportedly was placed under anesthesia before doctors conducting the surgery realized they didn't have the necessary supplies, forcing them to wake the patient and inform them.

In April 2017, the VA Office of Inspector General identified "serious and troubling deficiencies," and determined that patients were in imminent danger at the hospital.

"Although our work is continuing, we believed it important to publish this Interim Summary Report given the exigent nature of the issues we have preliminarily identified and the lack of confidence in VHA to adequately and timely fix the root causes of these issues," the report states. "At least some of these issues have been known to the Veterans Health Administration senior management for some time without effective remediation."

While Veterans Affairs did take several immediate actions to address these issues after being notified the previous month, the Inspector General "feels that these actions are short-term and insufficient to ensure the implementation of an effective inventory management system at the VAMC."

"OIG became aware of potentially serious patient care issues at the Washington, DC, Medical Center and promptly deployed our Rapid Response Team to investigate," Michael J. Missal, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General, said in the report. "Part of OIG's mission is to monitor the quality of patient care and outcomes for veteran patients who rely on VA for their health care. When we become aware of deficiencies at VA that place patients at unnecessary risk, we will act immediately and aggressively to address those deficiencies."

Image via Washington D.C. VA Medical Center