A former cardiologist at the W.G. Hefner VA Medical Center — reinstated on the hospital staff nearly two years ago after an appeals judge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found the VA had discriminated against him in 1994 — has left his position a second time.

This time, he charges the hospital with reprisal and harassment severe enough to injure his health.

As a result, the EEOC has accepted the recently filed complaints against officials of the medical center by Dr. Masood Khan, who worked there as a medical officer of the day until April 4. Khan, a native of India, had been on the VA staff since 1983.

No date for a hearing has been set.

A national EEOC investigator, however, has scheduled a telephone interview with him on Wednesday in the office of his lawyer, Louis Lesesne, in Charlotte.

In a letter to Khan, Peggy A. Joyner, regional EEOC officer in Washington, D.C., says “we have determined that your formal complaint of discrimination raises a claim that based on reprisal, you were subjected to a pattern of harassment/hostile work environment and disparate treatment from Sept. 17, 1999, through April 4, 2001.”

Joyner lists 10 examples which, she says, are “sufficiently related to potentially reflect a pattern or practice of discriminatory conduct.”

Therefore, she says, the claim has been accepted for further processing on the basis of reprisal.

It will be assigned to an impartial investigator, under the supervision of her Office of Resolution Management, which will investigate the claim.

The agency is required, she added, to investigate the complaint in a timely manner. The investigation must be completed within 180 days — or approximately six months — from the time the complaint was filed, which in this case was March 29.

Khan, in a letter to Marilyn Adamson in the office of Resolution Management in Washington, D.C., said that each of the incidents cited in his complaint “resulted in an emotionally traumatic and highly censuring meeting with Dr. (Marcia) Hunter,” chief of primary care during Khan’s time at the hospital.

“These meetings caused me so much depression and anxiety,” he wrote, “that I had to seek medical help in order to be able to continue my job. Finally I could not take it any more and was advised by my physician to stop working to avoid further emotional problems.”

He took medical leave from the hospital on April 4. His medical leave will be exhausted in mid-August.

Kahn’s earlier problem with the medical center occurred when his contract was not renewed on July 31, 1994.

The whole situation, he wrote, from his “wrongful discharge” and “an attempt by VA to reverse the conclusions of the investigation by EEOC by having a second investigation after I was terminated” were complicated by a potentially fatal automobile accident and the lack of health insurance, which he lost when he was terminated.

Recovery time and the expense led to bankruptcy.

The termination, his letter points out, also led to prolonged legal activity that finally ended in a hearing by an administrative judge, a finding of discrimination and reinstatement to his lost position as a doctor.

However, he wrote, a negotiated settlement agreement forced him to forgo his position as a staff cardiologist and work instead as medical officer of the day, he was denied his full compensatory damages, and the agreement was violated because he was denied a permanent position for which he had to appeal.

He won his case, but, he wrote Adamson, he was then subjected to reprisal and harassment.

As a result, he had to leave the hospital and has filed the second complaint.

If the EEOC hearing officer finds in his favor or against him, he will be given a choice of allowing the VA counsel general to resolve the case or to seek a hearing with an administrative judge.

Timothy May, director of the medical center, said he cannot comment on the case.

“Investigations are conducted by the Office of Resolution Management,” he says, “and we have no local authority in the investigative process, so it has to go through the process. Based on that I have no comment to make at this point.”

Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com .