Five days before she died of uterine cancer, Dr. Sarah Kemble, chief of medicine at the VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System in Leeds, submitted a 23-page affidavit to U.S. officials detailing problems of substandard care at the veterans' facility.

"It is my final wish to complete this affidavit ... so that I can attempt to change systemic and dangerous patient care, dangerous practices, and public safety issues," Kemble wrote.

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"It should not take a whistleblower on her deathbed for the VA to address outrageous failures of care ... Our veterans are heroes and they deserve better," Warren said in a statement.