Aurora Sentinel Online - Lawmakers, Vets Escalate VA Pressure
Group looking to get stand-alone veterans hospital
AURORA | Elected officials and veterans gathered Sunday, July 20, in Denver to urge the Department of Veterans Affairs to move forward with a stand-alone hospital at Fitzsimons.
"It's time to begin turning the dirt and begin building the VA hospital," said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colorado.
Representative Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer and a local veterans group joined Salazar at Lincoln Park in Denver to voice their frustrations with the oft-delayed veterans care hospital. Veterans carried shovels to symbolize their willingness to "build it themselves" if necessary.
The rally came in response to a letter sent Friday to the representatives by VA Secretary James Peake. The letter said increased costs for the hospital and other concerns inhibited construction of the facility in its current design.
"It was not only the cost of the facility that truly concerned me; it was that building a hospital of such size would still not properly serve the majority of veterans in this area," Peake wrote.
The representatives pointed to the constant delays as instigators for the rising costs of construction.
"The costs have gone up because the VA has waffled for four years," said Salazar.
Tauer said Aurora's first preference would be a stand-alone hospital on the former Fitzsimons Army hospital site, and added that expediency would benefit Aurora.
"Let's not let analysis overrun leadership," Tauer said. "(The hospital) really can't wait anymore."
The VA withheld a plan for a new Fitzsimons veterans hospital earlier this year because under the plan, the hospital would have cost about $330 million more than budgeted, Peake said.
In the letter, Peake said the VA completed the plan in January but abandoned the plan because at $1.1 billion, it was too expensive. The VA has budgeted approximately $769 million for the new hospital.
"VA determined that this schematic design solution was not affordable, based on a target total estimate cost," Peake said.
Perlmutter pointed to the $168 million already appropriated by Congress in combination with the $769 million originally planned as funding for the facility.
Salazar and Perlmutter last week accused the department of keeping under wraps a master plan for the proposed new veterans hospital. The plan, which cost $4.5 million to complete, was finished in January but has not been released, the two Democrats said.
"They've been purposefully withholding the Master Plan they spent more than $4 million on, it seems, to try to sell us and Colorado's veterans groups on a scaled-down proposal," Salazar said in a statement. "This withholding of critical information is a breach of public trust that is completely unacceptable."
In 2006 Congress approved $168 million in funding for a new veterans hospital on the Fitzsimons campus. The project has moved slowly since, and earlier this year the VA raised the possibility of partnering with the University of Colorado Hospital for an inpatient hospital tower that would have 250 beds, 110 of which would be set aside for veterans.
The VA offered four scenarios in a status report dated January 25, ranging from keeping the original stand-alone hospital plan and its elevated cost to changing the "project objective" for the VA hospital and significantly reducing its cost.
The VA's plan is to build two other scaled-down facilities in Colorado Springs and Billings, Mont., he said, and increase services at a handful of other, smaller facilities around the region.
Salazar applauded the VA's plan to create other clinics within the Rocky Mountain region, but said the Aurora-based center should serve as a hub of care for the network of healthcare facilities.
"It doesn't change the network that needs to be built," Salazar said. "We have 460,000 veterans in the region."
Aurora veteran Doug Wooddell, shovel in hand at the event, echoed the sentiment of the elected officials.
"This is symbolic of what we want. Either the VA gets off their duff, or we'll do it."