Appearing before a legislative committee to defend himself, a former director of the state Department of Veterans’ Services said May 10 he was thrown “under the train” in response to overblown problems at the state nursing home for military veterans.
Patrick Chorpenning resigned under fire in late March after public disclosure of an inspection report that found resident care and supervision shortcomings at the 200-bed facility in Phoenix, including that patients were deemed to be in “immediate jeopardy.”
Chorpenning told a legislative committee that key aspects of the state Department of Health Services inspection report were incorrect or overblown, and he and other officials had taken corrective action before Gov. Janet Napolitano made it perfectly clear that she had no further use for his services.
“It was a feeding frenzy and my one-legged butt went under the train, and I don’t appreciate it,” said Chorpenning, a former Marine who lost a leg in Vietnam.
Chorpenning said he was a victim to hysteria on the part of the news media, the Legislature and Napolitano that unfairly and inaccurately equated the home’s conditions with entirely unrelated problems regarding housing and care for military service members at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“There’s a comedy of errors here that have really mushroomed into taking 40 years of public service on my part and destroying it,” said Chorpenning.
Napolitano declined to comment on Chorpenning’s remarks.
“I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat,” she said during her weekly media availability May 10. “I think the most important thing that happened this week is the home has been reinspected, found to be in substantial compliance… and now our effort is going to be to sustain that.”
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