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VA Nurses Freed: Two Years of Struggle

By VVAW

In early February, to the horror of the Veterans Administration, Filipina nurses Leonora Perez and Filipina Narcisco, nurses at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital, had all charges against them dropped. Earlier, they had been found "guilty" of the murders of five patients at the hospital, patients who had been administered lethal doses of Pavulon, a powerful stimulant. But as a result of widespread popular support, the conviction had been overturned, and after taking time to survey the field, and finding a real grassroots movement building to free the nurses, the government decided to drop their ridiculous and unsubstantiated charges.

The entire case was a classic of U.S. justice and Veterans Administration cover-up. All "evidence" was circumstantial. Many possibilities were not investigated--for instance, one supervising nurse who confessed to the crimes before she committed suicide. Hospital chief of staff Martin Lindenaur instructed FBI investigators not to talk to doctors, hoping to coverup widespread ignoring of regulations in using Pavulon. That the nurses were Filipinos, were nurses instead of doctors, were women and not men, all seem to have played roles in their selections as victims in the case.

When all the evidence was in, however, the real criminal began to emerge and it was not the nurses; instead it was the Veterans Administration hospital system and the large system that lies behind it--one that will gladly send off people to fight and die for it but will attempt to ignore and shuffle off the veterans of its wars. The regulations concerning the powerful drug were ignored, testimony showed, because the hospital was understaffed. While nurses and doctors try to do their jobs as best they can, conditions don't allow them to give the kind of care they would like to give.

Since there is no money to be made from V.A. hospital care, the government and its corporate bosses consistently try to find ways to cut back on funds. Because they would rather put money where it will create a profit, they us the VA hospital system as a training ground for underpaid inters or residents-in-training. The veterans become the guinea pigs. A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences notes that 88% of all surgery in VA hospitals is done by inters or trainee-residents; 69% of these operations are not even supervised by a VA staff surgeon.

The nurses won their freedom through large popular support. In November petitions with 38,000 signatures from 33 cities were presented to the court. Support groups sprang up in cities across the country. The real culprit is still trying to get away unnoticed--but hundred of thousands of veterans know from their everyday experience what the quality of VA care is, know of the rotten conditions and surroundings in many VA hospitals, know of the understaffing and excessive administrative personnel tied up in mountains of red tape, and know that vets will not sit silently by while the VA tries to shift the blame and healthcare deteriorates further.