KEEPING VIGIL: U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen is shown at a weekend town hall meeting. The Memphis Democrat has an eye on the search for a new administrator at the local VA hospital. -- PHOTO BY TOM WILEMON

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, who requested a federal probe into the firing of a popular psychologist from the Memphis VA Medical Center, is now communicating with top officials at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as the agency searches for a new administrator for the hospital.

Cohen introduced the psychologist at the end of a raucous town hall meeting Saturday that turned into a battleground for opponents and supporters of health care reform. The congressman praised Sidney Ornduff for her work with veterans and said he wants to make sure the hospital gets a good administrator.

“Unfortunately, there was a conflict because the administrator for whatever reason wanted somebody else for that job,” Cohen said. “Fortunately, that administrator is gone.”

Patricia Pittman, the former administrator, is now the director of the VA hospital in Columbia, S.C. She was unavailable by press time.

Dozens of veterans protested on behalf of Ornduff after she was fired for her handling of a phone call from an Iraq War veteran who was threatening suicide. A federal arbitrator ruled last year that the hospital did not prove its allegations against Ornduff and reinstated her, but the psychologist resigned after not being allowed patient contact. She is now the director of clinical services for Shelby County Juvenile Court.

Marilyn Dillahay, the chief of staff for Cohen, told The Daily News on Monday that the congressman has spoken with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki about the hospital administrator vacancy.

“It’s one thing to check on things,” she said. “It’s another thing to somehow mess up the process, and we don’t want to do that. He obviously wants to make sure that someone very capable and competent is in that position, and he will continue to talk with the administration to that effect.”

The Saturday morning event had been planned as a general town hall meeting, but about 800 to 900 people packed the meeting. Bloggers with sites such as the “Blue Collar Republican” and “Confessions of a West Tennessee Liberal” and users of other social media put out calls for people to attend. The attendees included opponents and supporters of health care reform.

Dillahay said Cohen typically holds two to three town hall meetings a year. Usually, about 100 people attend the meetings, she said. The next event probably will be a telephone town hall, she said, where people listen over telephones to constituent questions being answered. The last such event had 3,000 callers on the line, she said.