Between 1992 and July 2010, 535 patients who had invasive dental work by Pemberton may have been exposed to bloodborne pathogens, the VA said. Nine have preliminary positive results for hepatitis B or hepatitis C.
In the early 1990s, “I came very, very close (to) limiting his (Pemberton’s) privileges, but at the eleventh hour ... the race card was played, and the direction I got from above was that we were going to reverse course and try something different,” the supervisor told VA investigators in September, according to excerpted transcripts of the interview.
The supervisor, whose name was edited from the transcripts, said Pemberton should not see patients since his clinical skills and knowledge were “very deficient.”
But the supervisor said his plans to revoke Pemberton’s privileges were verbally rebuffed by the VA’s chief of staff.
The supervisor, according to the transcripts, believed he was barred from discontinuing Pemberton’s privileges due to a letter the VA received from the local NAACP chapter in support of Pemberton, who is black. The supervisor, who left the Dayton VA about six years ago, also claimed “political pressure” prevented action against Pemberton. The supervisor acknowledged he had never seen any NAACP letter.
Jessie Gooding, president of the NAACP’s Dayton unit at the time, said he may have sent a letter to the VA supporting Pemberton, whom he knows personally, but couldn’t recall for sure. Derrick Foward, the current president of the local NAACP, said he does not know if any such letter was written or could be found in the NAACP’s files.
The VA also could not say Friday if it located such a letter.
VA investigators told the supervisor they knew other clinic workers had reported Pemberton’s poor infection control practices to him. In response, the supervisor said he counseled Pemberton. He also said an internal “focused professional practice evaluation” was performed on Pemberton, “and they said he was fine.” Additional information on that evaluation was not available Friday.
“I was encouraged just to leave well enough alone with my efforts to try and separate (Pemberton) from the service,” the supervisor told investigators. “So other than verbal counselings, I didn’t pursue anything any further, because that would have been poking somewhere I didn’t want to poke.”
Pemberton, who had been earning $165,878 per year, retired Feb. 11 at age 81 while administrative action against him was pending. He had not seen patients since July, when two clinic workers alerted VA officials outside the clinic of his poor infection control practices.
Pemberton couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. He has declined previous interview requests.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@ daytondailynews.com
About the Author