Durbin urges VA to create a `common sense' proposal
U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Togo West Jr. is being challenged by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to craft a plan for the four Chicago-area veterans' healthcare facilities that would pass the test of "common sense."
Durbin fired off a letter to West asking him to take a "critical look" at the data, assumptions and recommendations of the Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 12 Delivery Systems Options Study which would consolidate the four VA hospitals.
"Secretary West should throw this study in the trash and apply common sense and some creative thinking as he draws up his own plan," Durbin said. "This study looked at facilities, but lost sight of the veterans those facilities serve.
"It's based on a vision of veterans healthcare in the future that congress hasn't endorsed and on assumptions that veterans will need hospital care at half the rate of seniors under Medicare. That's not the kind of treatment I want for our veterans," Durbin said.
To prove his point, Durbin and his peers pointed out several problems they have with the VISN study. They said it does not make sense to close down the state-of-the-art North Chicago VA Medical Center when $100 million renovations were completed there just eight years ago.
Durbin said it also does not make sense to send all inpatient care to Lakeside because that center "would be bursting at the seams to accommodate veterans who are now served by Hines and North Chicago."
Article Copyright Sengstacke Enterprises, Inc.
No comments:
Post a Comment