For years, a promised regional veterans hospital has ridden a bureacratic roller coaster.
It was a go, then it wasn’t. It was a stand-alone facility, then it wasn’t. All the while, the Denver VA hospital grew older and more decrepit.
Last week, veterans got the news they had been waiting for. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki announced construction for a stand- alone, 200-bed hospital in Aurora would begin in 90 days.
It’s about time.
Colorado veterans have long had to endure an outdated and overcrowded VA hospital at East Ninth Avenue and Clermont Street in central Denver. They deserve better.
In 2004, a VA inspector general’s report detailed squalid conditions at the 1951 facility, including peeling paint in operating rooms, dirty linens mixed with clean and cramped quarters that severely diminished patient privacy.
Though the facility made great strides in cleaning up its act in recent years, administrators still had to deal with constant maintenance issues and a facility that wasn’t designed for today’s needs.
Furthermore, the new, 30-bed spinal cord injury care unit that Shinseki announced will build on a specialty the Denver VA hospital has developed.
While other veterans hospitals focus primarily on acute care for patients with spinal injuries, the Denver program also supports patients as they transition to daily life outside the hospital.
Given the horrendous injuries that veterans are sustaining in combat, the spinal cord unit will be a welcome addition.
The cost for the hospital has long been a bone of contention, and as of yet has not been announced. That figure is expected in April.
We hope it is less than the most recent, sky-high estimate of $1.1 billion. Since the VA made the project a priority in 2004, the agency has had three different leaders. Each time the hospital plan went through the bureacratic spin cycle, it came out more expensive. In 2005, it was $350 million. By last year, it had tripled in cost, ostensibly due to design changes. But we wonder if there were other machinations at work.
Not every VA secretary was equally enthusiastic about this project, and putting a high price tag on it may have been a move to delay or kill it.
Nevertheless, the facility, which will become part of the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, is now expected to be completed by 2013.
Once the new hospital is open for business, 92 percent of Colorado veterans will live within an hour’s drive of a VA primary care provider.
For years, veterans in the region have had to deal with substandard hospital conditions. Thankfully, the wait will soon be over.
