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VA QUIET ON RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FORT WAYNE
HOSPITAL -- A consulting firm has recommended
what
to do, but the VA has not made the report
public.
For more about the Fort Wayne VA, use the VA
Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=fort+wayne&op=ph
Story here...
http://www.journalgazette.
net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007100
6/NEWS03/710060404/1002/LOCAL
Story below:
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VA mum on hospital recommendation
Area vets hoping 2004 ruling on in-patient
services reversed
By Sylvia A. Smith
Washington editor
WASHINGTON -- A consulting firm has recommended what to do about the
Fort Wayne hospital where 48,000 veterans get their health care, but the
Department of Veterans Affairs has not made the report public.
Veterans who use the Lake Avenue hospital are pinning their hopes on the
report to reverse an earlier proposal to end in-patient services.
A national commission recommended in 2004 that only outpatient health
care be offered in Fort Wayne and that area veterans go to Indianapolis
for in-patient services.
After protests from veterans and Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, the VA agreed
to hire an independent consultant to take another look, including
re-evaluating how many people use the hospital. The initial
recommendation was made before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq spiked
the number of veterans with injuries and post-war medical conditions.
Possible recommendations include building a new facility on the Lake
Avenue campus, sending veterans to Indianapolis, adding a wing to the
existing hospital to expand the number of in-patient beds or signing a
long-term contract with a local hospital to provide care.
About 160,000 veterans live in the 26 Indiana and three Ohio counties
served by the hospital. Roughly 30 percent are in the VA health care
system, including 1,700 of the 3,300 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan,
regional spokesman Timothy Twiss said.
The $530,000 report, more than a year in the making and due in
mid-summer, was submitted to the VA by Virginia consulting firm Booz
Allen Hamilton. But until internal reviews are completed, headquarters
spokeswoman Lisette Mondello said, it will not be made public or given
to members of Congress.
Souder said he is less concerned about the report's being overdue than
he is that the recommendations are the best solution for regional
veterans.
Souder said he has not seen the report and doesn't have any firm inside
knowledge of what it will recommend, "but I am confident they'll
recommend more in-patient beds ... I know the facts. Any fair study is
going to include that."
The question is, he said, whether those beds are at the Lake Avenue
campus or at one of the area's other hospitals.
The report was ordered after a national commission projected in 2004
that just 17 of the hospital's 26 in-patient beds would be needed by
2012, far below the 40-bed minimum it said is needed to operate an
in-patient hospital.
The panel said shrinking the Fort Wayne hospital's services would save
$2 million.
sylviasmith@jg.net
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Larry Scott --
