Veterans Affairs Scandal

[Lucille]

http://wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.7046

From Free Republic: A Dept Veterans Affairs employee was fired after an arrest for armed robbery but her union quickly got her reinstated — despite a guilty plea — by pointing out that management’s labor negotiator is a registered sex offender, and the hospital director was once arrested and found with painkiller drugs. [Ed: not a joke.]

Freepers picked it up from neo-Trot central: hXXp://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/22/close-call-va-worker-reinstated-with-back-pay-after-missing-time-due-to-being-in-prison-for-armed-robbery/

http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/22/va...obbery-charge/

Employees said the union demanded her job back and pointed out that Tito Santiago Martinez, the management-side labor relations specialist in Puerto Rico, who is in charge of dealing with the union and employee discipline, is a convicted sex offender. Martinez reportedly disclosed his conviction to the hospital and VA hired him anyway, reasoning that “there’s no children in [the hospital], so they figure I could not harm anyone here.”

The union’s position — that another employee committed a crime and got away with it, so this one should, too — has been upheld by the highest civil service rules arbiters, and has created a vicious Catch-22 where the department’s prior indefensible inaction against bad employees has handcuffed it from taking action now against other scofflaws.

The same reasoning was used by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to justify reinstating VA executives Diana Rubens and Kim Graves after they swindled hundreds of thousands of dollars by bullying others out of jobs and then cashing in on relocation bonuses to take the jobs themselves.

[Bastiat's The Law]

Nothing surprises me anymore.

[Lucille]

Horrible.

Reform? Just shut them all down, and stop creating so many veterans.

BY ALEX ZIELINSKI MAR 25, 2016 11:39 AM

A New Jersey veteran has died after setting himself on fire in front of a state Department of Veterans Affairs clinic. While officials have yet to find any information explaining the 51-year-old man’s suicide, veterans’ advocates say his death could be a response to the VA’s serious lack of timely, accessible medical and mental health care.

“At the very least, his actions were an expression of need. We have been asking the VA … for years for Saturday appointments and late Wednesday night appointments, and were told it was going to be taken care of,” Bob Frolow, Atlantic County Veterans Affairs director, told the Press of Atlantic City on Wednesday. “As of today, it is still not.”

Over the past few years, investigations into VA clinics across the country have unveiled a system plagued with appointment delays that have led to veterans dying from cancer or committing suicide while waiting for care. Bipartisan support from Congress to reshape the VA has sparked further investigations, firings, and reform ideas, but substantial change could take years.
continued...http://thinkprogress.org/health/2016...-fire-suicide/

[Lucille]

Report Finds Sharp Increase in Veterans Denied V.A. Benefits
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/us...-benefits.html

Former members of the military like Mr. Bunn are being refused benefits at the highest rate since the system was created at the end of World War II, the report said. More than 125,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have what are known as “bad paper” discharges that preclude them from receiving care, said the report, released Wednesday by the veterans advocacy group Swords to Plowshares.

The report for the first time compared 70 years of data from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. It found that veterans who served after 2001 were nearly twice as likely as those who served during Vietnam to be barred from benefits, and four times as likely as men and women who served during World War II.

“We separate people for misconduct that is actually a symptom of the very reason they need health care,” said Coco Culhane, a lawyer who works with veterans at the Urban Justice Center in New York.
[...]
The rising proportion of ineligible veterans is largely due to the military’s increasing reliance on other-than-honorable discharges, which have been used as a quick way to dismiss troubled men and women who might otherwise qualify for time-consuming and expensive medical discharges.
[...]
Research has shown that veterans with bad paper discharges may be more likely to commit suicide. Those with untreated post-traumatic stress disorder are at higher risk of drug abuse and incarceration.

[tod evans]

^^^^^^^^This has been going on since Nam that I'm aware of. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Lucille]

I'd call this a scandal.

Since December, the VA Has Revoked Gun Rights For 260,000 Veterans
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...0-000-Veterans

[Lucille]

"Budget-Crunched" VA Has 167 Interior Designers On Staff
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/08/bu...#ixzz4H3FKxBax

An army of 167 interior designers work at the Department of Veterans Affairs, picking window blind colors and buying millions of dollars of art each year, an investigation from The Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

The designers’ salaries are not included in recent findings that the VA has spent $16 million on art during the Obama administration. At least a dozen individual pieces of art cost a quarter million dollars or more each. Nearly $700,000 was spent on two sculptures at a hospital for blind veterans, the Palo Alto Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center.

At $100,000 in combined salaries and benefits — many actually make more — the cost of employing those 167 designers would add up to $17 million a year, or $136 million during the eight years of the Obama administration, making the salaries of the people in charge of picking out art dwarf even those art costs.

The list of VA interior designers from 2011 — created by a company seeking to sell to the VA, and spotted online by the Daily Caller News Foundation — shows that virtually every hospital has an interior designer, with some having many. It’s unclear what could possibly keep them busy full-time, considering the bulk of the work would come during major renovations or construction of a new wing.

Oh look. More make-work "jobs" and middle class shadow welfare.

VA Hospital Bought $300,000 Worth Of TVs, Then Stored Them
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/09/va...n-stored-them/

Detroit’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital spent $311,000 on TVs that were never used and remain in storage.

The federal agency’s facility ordered the 300 TVs “because they had funds available,” which “may have violated the bona fide needs rule,” according to a new report from the department’s inspector general (IG).

Now, the TVs have sat “in storage for about 2 1/2 years. Further, warranties for the TVs expired.”

Officials were going to use the TVs for a new patient area that had not been built. In May, 2013, they met with the contractor who was planning the future stalls and agreed they would have Ethernet hookups instead of cable. A month later, VA ordered cable-powered TVs instead of Ethernet-powered sets.

“This information was not shared with the … contractor and the compatibility issue with the TVs was not discovered until November 2013 when the facility received the first shipment of TVs,” the IG said.

At that time, they decided to pay the contractor more to install cable rather than return the TVs.

But the new patient area still hasn’t been constructed.
[...]
Senior VA officials frequently claim their department has too little funding to care properly for patients, and have threatened to close down hospitals unless Congress gives the VA more money.

Although much attention has been paid to the fact that VA managers falsified statistics showing how long veterans had to wait for care so that they could get bonuses, an audit found that VA contracting officials did the exact same thing.

Jan Frye, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics, the top contracting official at the VA, said a culture of “lawlessness and chaos” reigns on high-dollar contracts, with officials wantonly misusing credit cards and managers ignoring procurement rule violations.

Fry said there was $1.2 billion of problematic credit card purchases in the prosthetic department alone in an 18-month period, including $70,000 spent on veterinary care for a pet dog.

[Lucille]

76-Year-Old Veteran Kills Himself In VA Parking Lot After Being Denied Treatment
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-0...nied-treatment

A 76-year-old military veteran killed himself outside a Long Island Veteran Affairs facility Sunday after being denied treatment. He was reportedly seeking help for mental health issues at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center but was turned away, an unfortunately common experience plaguing veterans seeking healthcare in recent years.

According to the New York Times, two people connected to the hospital spoke about the incident on the condition of anonymity. They explained “he had been frustrated that he was unable to see an emergency-room physician for reasons related to his mental health,” the Times reported.

“He went to the E.R. and was denied service,” one anonymous source said. “And then he went to his car and shot himself.”

Peter A. Kaisen of Islip, New York, committed suicide in the parking lot of the Northport facility, where he had been a patient. He was in the parking lot outside Building 92, the facility’s nursing home, when he shot himself.

One of the Times’ anonymous sources questioned why Kaisen had not been referred to Building 64, the mental health center at Northport.

“The staff member said that while there was normally no psychologist at the ready in the E.R., one was always on call, and that the mental health building was open ‘24/7,’” the Times reported.

“Someone dropped the ball. They should not have turned him away,” the source said.

[...]
Just last month, an Iowa military veteran suffering from PTSD and substance abuse killed himself after being denied treatment by the VA. He reportedly made an appointment seeking treatment but eventually posted on social media that he was turned away “even though he requested it and explained to a doctor that he felt his safety and health were in jeopardy,”KWQC, a local news outlet reported.

One veteran who drove to a Seattle VA last year with a broken foot was denied assistance walking from his car to the hospital entrance, a distance of a few feet. He was told to call 911, instead. One gun-wielding veteran with PTSD was shot and killed by police in Maricopa County, Arizona, last year after he was turned away from the VA hospital when he sought treatment for a mental health emergency. He had routinely called suicide hotlines for help but never received the full attention he needed.

Veteran suicides in the United States are a chronic problem. Though some argue the relatively recent figure from the VA that 22 veterans kill themselves per day is inflated, veterans still face a suicide risk higher than the rest of the American population. As USA Today has noted:

“In 2014, veterans accounted for 18% of all suicides in the United States, but made up only 8.5% of the population. In 2010, veterans accounted for 22% of U.S. suicides and 9.7% of the population.”

Further, a more recent analysis by the VA found that in 2014, 20 veterans killed themselves per day. Politifact, an independent fact-checker, has confirmed this figure. While rates of veteran suicides appear to be declining, the figures are still troubling.

Even absent mental health issues like depression and PTSD, veterans are dying waiting for regular health care. A VA whistleblower revealed last year that 238,000 out of 847,000 veterans died after submitting requests for treatment they never received. An audit in 2014 found 57,000 veterans were waiting more than 90 days for an appointment with the VA.

The United States government, politicians, and the media often express compassion and gratitude for veterans. To their credit, some lawmakers recently attempted to allow veterans to use cannabis as an alternative treatment in an amendment to a budget bill — a move Congress ultimately blocked.

But in spite of failed and often unwieldy efforts to reform veterans’ health care, the VA’s systemic failures continue to leave veterans feeling ignored and abandoned by the very institutions that still claim to value them.

[Lucille]

SHOCKING AUDIO: Cancer Patient Secretly Records His VA Doctor Visit
http://insider.foxnews.com/2016/08/2...audio-shocking

[vid]

A cancer patient who wanted to expose the horrific treatment inside the Phoenix VA secretly recorded his visit to the clinic.

The shocking audio revealed a VA doctor and nurse acknowledging the many problems with the VA, including a "nightmare" phone scheduling system and enormous, unwieldy patient loads for doctors.

To add insult to injury, the doctor expressed a desire to check the patients' heart and lungs but said he "misplaced" his stethoscope.

Retired Sgt. 1st Class Steve Cooper, who served in the U.S. Army for two decades, said on "Fox and Friends Weekend" this morning that he hopes his secretly recorded tapes will raise awareness about the many unresolved problems at the agency.

"This is absolutely systemic," Cooper told Pete Hegseth."I wanted to really highlight and show people how we're treated at the Phoenix VA. And so this is not a one-off at all."

"This type of behavior, this type of care, this inability for the government to effectively manage its health care is happening constantly throughout the country."

[Lucille]

It Turns Out That Firing Nobody and Giving the Agency More Money is a Really Poor Way to Fix Things
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...ix-things.html

Working in the world of privatization, one objection I get all the time to privately operating in a here-to-for public space is that government officials are somehow more "accountable" to the public than are private companies.

This strikes me as an utter disconnect with reality. If I screw up, I make less money or even go out of business. When government agencies or officials screw up, they generally remain unchanged and unpunished forever. There are no market competitive forces just waiting to shove a government agency aside -- they have a monopoly enforced at the point of government guns. [...]

Take the Phoenix VA. Congress eventually rewarded the VA with more money, almost no one was fired, and the one of the worst managers in the VA system, a serial failure in multiple VA offices who would have been fired from any private company I can think of, was put in charge of the struggling Phoenix VA.

Well, it turns out that firing nobody and giving the agency more money is really a poor way to fix things.

Patients in the Phoenix VA Health Care System are still unable to get timely specialist appointments after massive reform efforts, and delayed care may be to blame for at least one more veteran's death, according to a new Office of the Inspector General probe.

The VA watchdog's latest report, issued Tuesday, says more than two years after Phoenix became the hub of a nationwide VA scandal, inspectors identified 215 deceased patients who were awaiting specialist consultations on the date of death. That included one veteran who "never received an appointment for a cardiology exam that could have prompted further definitive testing and interventions that could have forestalled his death."

The report portrays Phoenix VA clerks, clinicians and administrators as confused and in conflict about scheduling policies despite more than two years of reform and retraining.

"Unexpectedly" as a famous blogger would say.

[Lucille]

Failing Government Managers Are Never Fired, They Are Just Moved (Or Even Promoted)
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...-promoted.html

After the scandalous management practices in the Phoenix VA which were proved to sacrifice patient well-being, and even patient lives, in favor of artificially pumping up managers' metrics and bonuses, someone with experience in the private sector might have expected the agency to clean house. Hah!

First, Congress rewarded the failing VA with more budget and headcount, the very things that motivate most government managers.

Now, the VA has assigned what appears to be their worst manager from a tiny, overseas branch of the agency to run the sensitive Phoenix office.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has named a new director to its beleaguered Phoenix VA Medical Center, and the decision instantly came under fire because the appointee left a previous hospital leadership post after it got the lowest satisfaction rating of any facility in the VA system.

RimaAnn Nelson, who most recently headed a tiny VA clinic in the Philippines, is expected to take charge of a Phoenix VA Health Care System that was the epicenter of a national crisis over its treatment of veterans. She is the seventh director during the past three years to enter a revolving leadership door at Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center....

Nelson, who began her career as a nurse, was sent to the Philippines in 2013 after a series of incidents under her leadership at the VA St. Louis Health Care System. The Daily Caller, a non-profit, investigative news organization, said the incidents included two closures of the hospital due to medical safety issues, and potential exposure of HIV to hundreds of veterans.

How is this person even still employed, much less being rewarded with a larger, more responsible post?

[Suzanimal]

It Turns Out That Firing Nobody and Giving the Agency More Money is a Really Poor Way to Fix Things
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...ix-things.html

Ya don't say?!

[jllundqu]

I have my own horror story about the VA here in Arizona... I'll post it one day.

[DamianTV]

Failing Government Managers Are Never Fired, They Are Just Moved (Or Even Promoted)
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...-promoted.html

Peter Principle, if you are good, or even too good at your job, there is a tendancy to give promotions to incompetent people just to get them out of the position where they can just $#@! up less, but cause way more damage.

[Lucille]

VA Whistleblower Ignites Firestorm Over Vets’ Illnesses
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...s%92-Illnesses

[Suzanimal]

Wisconsin VA dentist failed to meet proper cleaning standards

TOMAH, Wis. – The health of hundreds of veterans is in question because a dentist at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center failed to meet proper cleaning standards.

Tomah VA acting medical director Victoria Brahm said Tuesday 592 veterans that received care from the dentist can receive free screenings for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV.

At a news conference, Brahm said a dental assistant reported last month that the dentist had not properly cleaned equipment, so an investigation was launched. Brahm says the dental equipment may have been cleaned, but it didn't meet VA standards.

Fifty-four veterans that had bridge and crown work done received phone calls about the problem. The others affected will receive letters.

...

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/1...standards.html

[Lucille]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/12/04...ound-dies.html

TALIHINA, Okla. – Four staff members have resigned from a southeastern Oklahoma veterans facility rather than face the possibility of getting fired, after a resident was found to have maggots in a wound.

Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs executive director Myles Deering said the maggots were discovered while the patient was alive at the facility in Talihina, about 130 miles southeast of Tulsa. Deering said the maggots were not the cause of his death.

Deering said the veteran came to the center with an infection and died of sepsis, the Tulsa World reported.
[...]
"During the 21 days I was there ... I pled with the medical staff, the senior medical staff, to increase his meds so his bandages could be changed," Parker said. "I was met with a stonewall for much of that time."

Go somewhere else for treatment, for crying out loud!

[Lucille]

Exclusive: Internal documents detail secret VA quality ratings
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...rans/94811922/

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs has for years assigned star ratings for each of its medical centers based on the quality of care and service they provide, but the agency has repeatedly refused to make them public, saying they are meant for internal use only.

USA TODAY has obtained internal documents detailing the ratings, and they show the lowest-performing medical centers are clustered in Texas and Tennessee.

VA hospitals in Dallas, El Paso, Nashville, Memphis and Murfreesboro all received one star out of five for performance as of June 30, the most recent ratings period available.

Many of highest-rated facilities are in the Northeast — in Massachusetts and New York — and the upper Midwest, including in South Dakota and Minnesota. Those medical centers scored five out of five stars.

The VA determines the ratings for 146 of its medical centers each quarter and bases them on dozens of factors, including death and infection rates, instances of avoidable complications and wait times.

USA TODAY Network is publishing the ratings in full for the first time so that members of the public — including patients and their families — can see how their local VA medical centers stack up against others across the country.
[...]
The documents obtained by USA TODAY detail those averages, and when asked about them, VA officials agreed to provide updated statistics. Overall, the data show something of a mixed bag, with improvements in some areas and declines in others.

On average, veterans are dying at lower rates and contracting fewer staph and urinary tract infections from catheters in VA medical centers since 2014. Veterans are not staying as long in VA hospitals and they are being readmitted within 30 days at lower rates.

At the same time, veterans are experiencing higher rates of preventable complications during hospital stays, on average, than they did in 2014. Those on ventilators suffered more problems, such as catching pneumonia, and the rate of turnover for nurses has increased.

The VA has also seen increases in the percentage of veterans who have to wait longer than 30 days for appointments when they are new patients. Overall, more than 500,000 veterans were still waiting longer than 30 days to be seen as of Nov. 15. More than 125,000 of them were waiting longer than two months, and 46,000 were waiting more than six months.
[...]

HOW DOES YOUR VA STACK UP?

...Search for a state, town, hospital name or star rating below.

You'll have to search at the link.

[Jamesiv1]

TALIHINA, Okla. – Four staff members have resigned from a southeastern Oklahoma veterans facility rather than face the possibility of getting fired, after a resident was found to have maggots in a wound.

Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs executive director Myles Deering said the maggots were discovered while the patient was alive at the facility in Talihina, about 130 miles southeast of Tulsa. Deering said the maggots were not the cause of his death.

Deering said the veteran came to the center with an infection and died of sepsis, the Tulsa World reported.
[...]
"During the 21 days I was there ... I pled with the medical staff, the senior medical staff, to increase his meds so his bandages could be changed," Parker said. "I was met with a stonewall for much of that time."

what's wrong with maggots? Isn't that what the African guy put on Russell Crowe's wound in Gladiator?

VA hospitals are on a tight budget. Home remedies are often the best.

[Lucille]

That’s Government Health Care
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog...t-health-care/

First they moved the dead body into a hallway. Then they took it into a shower room.

There it remained, ignored, for more than nine hours. No one showed up to take it to the morgue because no one called the dispatchers.

Not much is known about the unidentified veteran who died in hospice care at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System outside St. Petersburg, Fla. But a hospital investigation made public Friday by the Tampa Bay Times criticizes staff members for leaving the veteran’s body unattended for such a long time and then trying to cover up their mistake.

The veteran died in February, and the Times obtained the report from the hospital’s Administrative Investigation Board through a Freedom of Information Act request. Investigators interviewed more than 30 witnesses, the Times reported, finding that hospice staff members “demonstrated a lack of concern, attention and respect” for the veteran and subjected the veteran’s body to “increased risk of decomposition.”

According to the heavily redacted report, the veteran died while receiving treatment in the hospice unit at the sprawling medical complex on Florida’s Gulf Coast. When staff members learned the veteran had died, the report says, they asked a transporter to carry the body to a morgue. The transporter allegedly told them to contact dispatchers instead.
[...]
The body sat in a hallway for an unspecified amount of time before staff members moved it into a shower room, according to the Times. They left it there unattended for more than nine hours, investigators reportedly found.
[...]
When the veteran’s body was finally moved, Bay Pines staff members “falsely documented” the incident and tried to blame their mistakes on a communication breakdown that never happened, according to the Times. Staff members also tried to pin blame on a lack of clerical staff in the hospital, and they failed to update an organizational chart to make it harder to determine who was in charge, investigators found.
[...]
“I am deeply disturbed by the incident that occurred at the Bay Pines VA hospital, and even more distressed to learn that staff attempted to cover it up,” Bilirakis said in a Facebook post Friday. “Unsurprisingly, not a single VA employee has been fired following this incident, despite a clear lack of concern and respect for the Veteran. The men and women who sacrificed on behalf of our nation deserve better.”

[Lucille]

Sweet gig.

VA Rehires ‘Bad Boss’ It Paid Settlement of $85k To Resign
http://dennismichaellynch.com/va-reh...nt-85k-resign/

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) fired hospital director for misconduct, paying him $85,000 to resign, then rehired him at a new location and allowed to keep his resignation settlement.

Terry Atienza, CEO of the VA’s Grand Junction hospital in Colorado, was dismissed from his position after being chronically absent. In a report on Tuesday from The Daily Caller, the VA negotiated a settlement of $85,000 for him to resign “from federal service voluntarily, completely and irrevocably, as stated in the signed Atienza settlement. He was also forced to withdraw “complaints of discrimination, appeals before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), claims to the Office of Special Counsel, administrative grievances, civil actions, [and] claims for worker’s compensation.”

In exchange, the VA “agreed to give a letter of recommendation saying he was ‘excellent’ — a false letter, given that it actually believed he should be fired.”

After his resignation, Atienza began seeking employment at other VA hospitals.
[...]
It has been reported that Atienza filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint despite him having the highest-ranking position. He claims that the VA was “guilty” and had “ethical” problems, though failed to produce any examples of racism. He rarely had interaction with his boss – Rocky Mountain regional office director Ralph Gigliotti – whom he waged allegations against. If Atienza’s statements are true, then this settlement would be deemed, “wildly unethical because Gigliotti is the one who authorized and signed it.” Basically, a boss can pay someone off in an effort to prevent their misconduct from being exposed.

When The Daily Caller asked a VA spokesperson about the settlement, they commented that “all parties agreed that it provided the correct outcome for Veterans, employees and stakeholders.”

Additional remarks by The Daily Caller highlight the lack of common sense and blatant mishandling of this case:

It would have been better if VA merely lit the $85,000 on fire. Instead, the agency’s idiotic policies resulted in wasting taxpayer dollars by reinforcing the fact that agency employees, especially its leaders, are above the law. No amount of misconduct or criminality will result in termination in most instances.

Atienza is being allowed to keep his resignation settlement, maintain a regular paycheck, and will not be held accountable for chronic absenteeism. He has since been hired as facility planner in the director’s office at the Shreveport VA facility.

[Suzanimal]

[Suzanimal]

VA hospital cancels dozens of surgeries due to insect infestation: report


A Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Los Angeles was forced to close operating rooms for 22 days between 2016 and 2018 due to a persistent infestation of insects.

A local CBS News investigation found that the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center has installed at least 200 flytraps to deal with an infestation of Phorid flies in operating rooms that has plagued the building since at least November of 2016.

The infestation has gotten so bad that multiple operating rooms have been forced to close for days at a time, delaying surgeries and stymieing doctors seeking to treat wounded and chronically suffering veterans.


Etymologists told CBS that the Phorid flies are attracted to open wounds, where they seek to lay eggs. They are also known for transmitting dirt and bacteria, causing an additional health risk.

A former investigator for the House Veterans' Affairs Committee told the news station that the failure to clean up the years-long infestation represents a failure at the "highest levels" of the agency.

...

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare...station-report

[tod evans]

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/385863-va-hospital-cancels-dozens-of-surgeries-due-to-insect-infestation-report

Betcha pensions and 'salaries' were paid......

[angelatc]

Etymologists told CBS that the Phorid flies are attracted to open wounds, where they seek to lay eggs. They are also known for transmitting dirt and bacteria, causing an additional health risk.

ewwww