VA clinic apologizes after vet placed in dirty exam room with overflowing trash can
An overflowing garbage can. Medical supplies and a disposable cup scattered across the counter. A bowl of something soaking in the sink, with white splatters on the floor and cabinets.
When Stephen Wilson saw the condition of the room he says his Army veteran son was taken to for treatment, he called it "unprofessional, unsanitary and disrespectful." Now a Veterans Affairs clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah, has apologized and launched an inquiry to figure out what happened.
Wilson tweeted photos of the clinic room on April 27, tagging President Donald Trump and urging others to retweet.
"My son is a Veteran of the United States Army. He went to the #VA in Salt Lake City yesterday. This was the condition of the room he was seen in. Very unprofessional, unsanitary and disrespectful," he wrote.
"The condition of the room was the way it was when he went in, no other room was offered and no attempt to clean it up was made for the duration of his appointment. No apologies offered. He received injections for a service injury during one of his tours in Iraq," Wilson continued in another tweet.
His son Christopher Wilson spent six years in the Army and was deployed to Iraq twice, according to KSL.
"I figured they would say, 'Oh, this room's not clean' and take me somewhere else, but they just kind of blew past it, didn't acknowledge it," Christopher Wilson told KSL. "They're doctors, right? So I figure one of them was going to say 'Let's go somewhere else' or 'Give us a minute to clean it,' but nothing."
His father's tweet, which was shared more than 15,000 times, prompted a quick backlash and an apology from the clinic.
“I was taken aback by the condition of the room,” Dr. Karen Gribbin, the chief of staff of the Salt Lake VA, told Fox 13. “The patient, Mr. Wilson should not have been placed in the room in that condition ... I do not want another veteran to experience this."
Wilson told the Deseret News that it "felt unsanitary" when he was treated with injections to his ankle. "When you think medical, you think sanitary," Wilson told the paper. "I've never experienced anything like that."
Gribbin told KSL the room looked like it was used for making plastic casts for diabetic patients, but that didn't mean the room was necessarily unsanitary.
"My understanding was that strictly these casts are applied in this room but there (are) not other types of debridement or surgical removal of tissue or anything like that that occurs (in the room), so I do not believe Mr. Wilson was exposed to any dangerous body fluids or blood," Gribbin told the station.. "But regardless, the room should have been cleaned before he was placed in it."
Wilson told The Deseret News he hoped the photos being out in public would cause a change.
"(To) actually see the conditions, being able to get awareness about the problems, I think might help," he told the paper.
Gribbin told KSL this was the first time someone had ever reported something like this to her, and that staff will hold a meeting "bright and early Monday morning before clinic starts in that area to review what appears to have happened and make sure that everyone is clear on our expectations."
This story was originally published April 30, 2018 at 11:54 AM with the headline "VA clinic apologizes after vet placed in dirty exam room with overflowing trash can."