CHICO, Calif. – The sister of a former Chico Veteran Affairs patient speaks out following an investigation by the Office of Inspector General.
Ashley Roberson says her brother, Andrew Iles, was one of the two patients at the center of a Federal Investigation into the Chico Veteran Affairs Clinic after he shot their mother.
Roberson wants the clinic to take accountability after what happened to her brother back in Jan. of 2022.
“I feel like they just treated him just like a number going through this process,” Roberson said. “The clinic didn’t make it a priority for him to have the same daycare or even local care with providers even in the area.”
Veterans come in and out of the clinic daily. However, the families of two former patients, Andrew Iles and Julia Larsen, say the Chico VA Clinic provided their loved ones with inadequate service.
Iles’ older sister Roberson shared her frustrations with Action News Now about the Office of Inspector General’s Report.
“Both of these young people asked for help,” Roberson said. “They were told things that they needed to do for that help and they were turned away.”
Roberson confirms that Iles, her younger brother, went to the Chico VA Clinic on Jan. 4, 2022, the day before he shot and killed his mother. She says he was denied same-day access to on-site care providers.
Roberson says her brother was using Telehealth and would get prescriptions by mail. Iles had already been diagnosed with Schizophrenia and paranoid psychotic depression before the shooting.
“He was afraid for his life,” Roberson said. “He was put into contact with his primary care provider, his pharmacist, and was told there was nothing they could do. They didn’t have any support to offer him. He asked to be connected to a doctor and was told there was none available for two days and that all he should do is restart the medication they had given him that hadn’t been working.”
Iles admitted that the next day, Jan. 5, he shot his mother twice with a shotgun. He then called 911 to report what happened.
“Watching Andrew in the last few months before this happened, he became a different person,” Roberson said.
The Chief Communications Manager for the VA did provide a comment to Action News Now.
The VA said in part “There is nothing more important to VA than providing high-quality mental health care to Veterans – especially Veterans in crisis – whenever and wherever they need it. VA Northern California Health Care System (VANCHCS) is committed to providing high-quality health care to every Veteran in our care – anything less is unacceptable.”
As for nurse practitioners directly involved with Iles and Larsen, they told Action News Now that one nurse practitioner left the VA and that the other provider remains employed with the VA.
The VA also said Larsen and Iles didn’t see a doctor the day they needed to, because the clinic had lost several providers in a short window.
Last week Action News Now spoke with the father of Julia Larsen, the other patient at the center of the OIG investigation. He also says he wants the VA to be held accountable after his daughter ended up killing her mother soon after leaving the clinic without getting adequate care.
This article was originally published by a www.actionnewsnow.com . Read the Original article here. .