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WILL THE VA REBUILD IN NEW ORLEANS? -- "Putting
the replacement facility in a flood-prone area
looks
like no lesson was learned in the past."
We have two stories...
First story
here...
http://blog.nola.com/
times-picayune/2007/07/house_com
mittee_lukewarm_on_pl.html
Story below:
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House Committee luke-warm on plans for downtown
VA hospital
By Kate Moran
Staff Writer
Several members of the House committee on veterans affairs expressed
skepticism on Monday that the federal government should build a new
veterans hospital in downtown New Orleans, where it could be prone to
flooding should another major hurricane strike the city.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican who has previously advocated
moving the hospital to his district, emerged as the strongest critic of
the proposal to erect the hospital downtown. He said government should
not chance a public investment in a vulnerable area that lost many of
its veterans after Hurricane Katrina.
"Putting the replacement facility in a flood-prone area looks like no
lesson was learned in the past," Miller said. "Putting it back in the
same area that has had a population shift looks like the VA is not
looking toward the future."
But Mayor Ray Nagin downplayed fears that a new downtown hospital would
be vulnerable to floods, saying it would built on pilings and ringed by
levees that have been armored and repaired by the Army Corps of
Engineers.
"If it was not for some flaws in the design of the federally built levee
systems here in New Orleans, we would not be talking about these
critical issues," Nagin said.
The committee held a field hearing in the French Quarter on Monday at
the request of U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, the Baton Rouge Republican who
has expressed concern in recent months that it might take five years or
more to build a new veterans hospital downtown.
Baker dismissed persistent rumors that he wants to relocate the hospital
to his home district, but he said he has reservations about the downtown
location -- and a proposed collaboration with Louisiana State University
-- if the challenges of building in a low-lying urban area will prolong
construction and elevate the cost.
"I care about getting this facility built in as quick a period of time
as is humanly practicable," Baker said, adding later, "If we can do this
in the city with the proposal before us, fine, but somebody has to
explain why it will take until 2013 to get the doors open. If there is
an alternative, the alternative should be seriously examined."
For more than a year, the U.S. Department of Veterans affairs has
discussed building a hospital that would share laundry and laboratory
space with the new LSU teaching hospital. The sister institutions would
be located in an area bounded by Claiborne Avenue, Canal Street, South
Rocheblave Street and Tulane Avenue.
City and state leaders have trumpeted the project as an important anchor
for the biosciences corridor they are trying to develop downtown. In
addition to the medical schools, that corridor includes a new cancer
research center that will break ground this fall.
"This will create a rich, dynamic teaching and research environment that
will rival any in the country," Alan Miller, Tulane's senior vice
president for health sciences, told the committee. "It is hard to
imagine the district without the VA, and the VA being built anywhere
other than the district."
Nagin likewise called the veterans hospital "critical" to the future of
downtown New Orleans. As political leaders argue for the hospital's
importance to the city, the veterans administration is considering a
proposal to build its new hospital on 28 acres across from Ochsner
Medical Center on Jefferson Highway.
Ochsner's chief executive, Patrick Quinlan, attended the field hearing
and submitted written testimony about the "advantages" afforded by the
Jefferson Highway site, including the fact that it is "above sea level."
He also said the VA could connect to Ochsner's electronic medical
records system, among the most sophisticated in the region.
Miller, the Florida congressman, questioned whether the new veterans
hospital might go up faster on the Jefferson Highway site, which is
owned free and clear by Ochsner. The city and state would have to use
eminent domain to acquire the property downtown, including the former
Dixie Brewery and a number of private homes, many of them in poor
condition.
Nagin assured the panel that the city and state could use "quick-take"
authority to acquire the property within 18 months, the amount of time
it will take the VA to design its new hospital. The city would foot the
bill to acquire 34 of 71 acres needed to build the joint LSU-VA
hospitals, an area includes 188 private properties, many of them in
decrepit condition.
As several congressmen questioned whether the hospital might go up
faster if moved out of downtown New Orleans, U.S. Rep. William
Jefferson, a Democrat, emerged as the panel's only ardent advocate for
keeping it in the city. Jefferson, who was indicted last month on
federal corruption charges, attended even though he does not sit on the
House veterans affairs committee.
Jefferson said several times that it almost always takes several years
to build veterans hospitals, regardless of their location. Julie
Catellier, the director of the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care
System, backed him up.
The veterans who spoke at the hearing offered mixed reviews about the
desirability of keeping the hospital downtown. Chuck Trenchard, adjutant
of the Disabled American Veterans, said the facility should be built
farther inland from New Orleans, possibly in Hammond or Gonzales, and he
questioned whether the collaboration with LSU would really be beneficial
to veterans.
Bill Detweiler, past national commander of the American Legion, said the
hospital should go downtown, where veterans would benefit from the
proximity to the medical schools and the cutting-edge research that
comes out of them.
One veteran, Henry Cook, the national vice commander of the Military
Order of the Purple Heart, reminded the panel that the hospital proposal
should be first and foremost for the benefit of veterans. He said other
considerations about the future of downtown should be ancillary.
"This is not about jobs. It is not about downtown. It is not about
Tulane, LSU or public hospitals," Cook said. "It is about veterans."
Cook told the panel that veterans have had to travel all over the south
to receive health care since the old hospital closed after Hurricane
Katrina. He said this has been particularly distressing to veterans who
suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, including one soldier who
recently returned from the Iraq war and committed suicide after he had
to wait six weeks for an appointment at a clinic.
"We cannot afford another death like that," Cook said.
Rica Lewis-Payton, a VA deputy network director, said her agency had
recently made arrangements that will give VA doctors privileges at
Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, where they can treat some of
their patients close to home rather than send them to hospitals around
the south.
Kate Moran can be reached at
kmoran@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3491.
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Second story here...
http://www.katc.com/
Global/story.asp?S=6765579
Story below:
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Fed up by long waits, travel, vets clamor for
south La. hospital
NEW ORLEANS -- Appearing at a congressional hearing, military veterans
on Monday deplored the fragmented state of health care ever since
Hurricane Katrina flooded a veterans hospital in downtown New Orleans
nearly two years ago.
The testimony by disabled veterans was made at a field hearing of the
U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which is engaged in a debate
over where a new veterans hospital should be built to replace the one
flooded by Katrina.
With pleas for compassion, including one by an emotionally scarred
Korean War prisoner of war, the veterans described a severed health care
system where, for example, patients in need of prosthetic legs are
forced onto long waiting lists and made to travel out of state to get
treatment.
"When the time came, we served our country," said Bill Penn, a Korean
War prisoner of war. "Please, now, respect us in our needs today."
Penn, an obstetrician, said he has suffered from post-traumatic stress
disorder "nightly for 54 years" and that he is now having to travel to
Little Rock, Ark., to get the necessary help.
"I don't know why so much bureaucracy is involved in this hospital,"
said William Detweiler, a past national commander of the American
Legion. "Let's quit talking and let's start building."
Although water only reached thigh-high on the first floor of the old
veterans hospital, officials determined it was too badly damaged to
rebuild because electrical systems were in the basement and mold
destroyed equipment throughout the building. Most of the hospital has
been closed since Katrina, although some primary care and mental
services are available.
Plans for a new veterans hospital, however, have been tied up in a
debate over whether it makes sense to build a hospital in flood-prone
New Orleans and also whether it should be included in a new $1.2 billion
public hospital project.
During a trip to New Orleans in March, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim
Nicholson pledged to build a new hospital in the New Orleans area, but
some members of Congress have been trying to use their muscle to get it
transferred somewhere else in the South.
Even if a new hospital is built, it would not open for at least five
more years, a prospect that has left many veterans in south Louisiana
feeling abandoned as they clamor for a hospital to open as soon as
possible.
"Grandiose plans for what could be in the future are of no use to our
members and veterans who have been deprived of earned benefits and
care," said Henry Cook, a national senior vice commander of the Military
Order of the Purple Heart. "The time is now, the need is now."
On Monday, the field hearing spent most of its time dissecting the
particulars and financial underpinnings of the proposed public hospital.
The hospital would replace the flooded Charity Hospital and act as an
academic medical center and a veterans hospital.
The veterans were united in their demand for a new hospital, but they
were at odds over the hospital's location.
Some said it would be unwise to build a hospital in New Orleans because
of the threat from hurricane flooding, an opinion backed by Rep. Jeff
Miller, R-Fla. Miller has been working to funnel more resources to the
Florida Panhandle, a region without a veterans hospital.
"So, you're taking dollars away from other veterans around the country
so you can build in a flood plain?" Miller said. "It doesn't make
sense."
Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., disagreed and said work to the levee
system since Katrina has made the city much safer from flooding.
-------------------------
Larry Scott --
