Wisconsin lawmakers demand probe into ‘Candy Land’ VA facility

More members of Wisconsin’s delegation on Capitol Hill are demanding an investigation into a Veterans Affairs Department facility in their state where pain medication was reportedly prescribed to patients “like candy.”

{mosads}On Wednesday, Sen. Ron Johnson and Rep. Sean Duffy, both Republicans, sent a letter to the agency’s inspector general asking for investigation into the VA hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin.

The pair cited a new study by the Center for Investigative Reporting that found patients had dubbed the facility “Candy Land” for the number of pain medications it doled out. While the number of patients at the hospital declined, opiate prescriptions had reportedly quintupled over the last eight years.

“Reports questioning the prescribing practices at the VA Medical Center in Tomah are cause for alarm,” Johnson, the newly installed chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

“As chairman of the Senate committee overseeing the way government agencies operate, I am requesting the Inspector General’s Office get to the bottom of this matter,” he said.

Johnson and Duffy demanded answers to their questions from the VA watchdog by Jan. 27.

Their letter comes after others sent to the VA earlier this week by Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Rep. Ron Kind, both Wisconsin Democrats.

In separate missives, Baldwin and Kind asked VA Secretary Robert McDonald to look into the allegations.

Baldwin, who last year called on the VA to look into anonymous complaints about the use of prescription painkillers at the site, asked McDonald to “take immediate action to address extremely troubling reports of improper opiate prescribing practices and abuse of administrative authority” at the hospital.

She also criticized the agency’s watchdog for its “reluctance to recognize a clearly significant problem at the Tomah VA.”

Kind requested “an immediate investigation into the use of painkillers,” including comparisons of prescription rates at the Wisconsin hospital and others in the VA medical system.

“Although I remain convinced that our Wisconsin facilities provide quality care for our veterans, these reports about inappropriate prescription levels are alarming and we must address these issues head-on,” he wrote.