Miami VA Hospital Chief Ousted

MIAMI -- The head of the Miami Veterans Affairs hospital was removed from her position Wednesday, more than two years after 2,500 veterans were told the colonoscopies they had there might have been performed with improperly cleaned equipment.

Mary Berrocal had been under fire since May 2009, when the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs revealed that as many as 11,000 U.S. military veterans at VA facilities in Miami, Georgia and Tennessee might have had colonoscopies with equipment that had been simply rinsed between uses, rather than sterilized by steam and chemicals as required by the manufacturer.

Of the more than 2,500 South Florida veterans affected, blood tests done after the potential exposure showed five positive for HIV, eight for hepatitis C and one for hepatitis B. The Department of Veterans Affairs said there was no way to know if they had been infected by the improperly cleaned equipment, but promised free lifetime care for all those affected.

"VA leadership decided that even though Miami is making great strides to improve clinical care, too much attention had been focused on the current director to let her continue to do her job," said agency spokeswoman Mary Kay Hollingsworth.

The move does not end Berrocal's career with the agency, she said: "She will be reassigned."

Hollingsworth did not know if Berrocal's new job would be at the same level.

Berrocal, who had headed the Miami hospital since 2008, will be replaced on an interim basis by an acting director, Cheri Szabo, currently director of the West Palm Beach VA Medical Center.

Berrocal and her chief of staff, Dr. John Vara, were "admonished" earlier this year by the national VA -- an administrative punishment that stays on an employee's record for two years.

Berrocal, a native of Puerto Rico who joined the VA system in 1980, had worked at VA facilities in Clarksburg, W.Va.; Columbia, S.C.; Loma Linda, Calif., Los Angeles; and Gainesville, Fla.

Vara earlier was reassigned to the VA hospital in West Palm Beach as chief of staff for education and research.

Two U.S. congressional committees held hearings and criticized Berrocal and Vara. In one hearing, U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said: "I'd recommend that you let them go."

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Miami Republican in whose district the VA hospital is located, said she hopes that "the new leadership will take immediate steps to assure that our patriots receive the first class health care they have earned."

Two reports by the VA's Administrative Investigation Board, which began investigating after the colonoscopy problems, criticized the Miami VA facility for poor quality control, lax supervision and sloppy procedures.

One of the reports said: "Technicians and nurses responsible for setting up and cleaning endoscopic equipment used for colonoscopies had not been instructed that it had to be sterilized after each use, and were only rinsing it. Technicians and nurses do not routinely read manuals, but go more on experience. When technicians were not available due to vacation or illness, nurses would set up and clean endoscopic equipment, though they weren't trained to do it."

Hundreds of veterans have filed notice to sue. U.S. Air Force veteran Robert Metzler of Coral Gables, Fla., took his case before U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan this summer. Metzler says he contracted hepatitis C from his colonoscopy.

"The VA has a duty to give veterans the absolute best care possible," Metzler's attorney, Ervin Gonzalez, told the judge. "It failed, and ruined his life. It put at risk veterans who went to the VA for colonoscopies."

Jordan has not yet ruled in the case.

Szabo, Miami's new interim director, started her VA career in Miami 37 years ago as a health system specialist at the VA hospital. She has worked at VA facilities in Pittsburgh, Richmond, Va. and Newington, Conn. She was appointed director in West Palm Beach in 2006 and will return there when a new permanent Miami director is named, Hollingsworth said.