Luke Rosiak
The Washington Examiner
1/9/2015
Doctors at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Wisconsin dope up veterans with unusual amounts of painkillers, turning them into “zombies” to keep them sedated and easily managed, according to patients and onetime staff, a new investigation found.
The Center for Investigative Reporting wrote Thursday that doctors at the VA hospital in Tomah, Wis., wrote 25,000 prescriptions for opiates in 2012, up from about 2,000 11 years prior.
At least one patient has died of the drugs while in VA care. Many of the patients were there to work through psychological trauma, but instead, the VA deadened them emotionally, one former VA psychiatrist said.
“We were supposed to be doing hard work, getting these veterans to fight through their anxiety and fear,” Jennifer Brooks said. “But their eyes would be dilated, their sentences would be blurry. Sometimes they’d be on so many medications that they’d fall asleep.”…
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