VA Expected to Shut Three Hospitals, Build Two Others

The Veterans Affairs Department will close three hospitals in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Mississippi and build two new ones in Nevada and Florida as part of a much-anticipated restructuring plan, the agency is expected to announce today.

The agency also will add or remove some services at dozens of other facilities.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi also has endorsed building 156 community-based outpatient clinics by 2012, with an emphasis on serving rural areas. Local VA officials had sought 270 clinics.

Principi was to release the plan today in Las Vegas. Several congressional officials who had seen it described the contents.

The department undertook the restructuring two years ago to shift services to areas where veteran populations were increasing and to modernize outdated buildings and shed vacant space.

Under the plan, the VA expects to reduce costs for maintaining vacant space from $3.4 billion to $750 million by 2022, but projects spending $6 billion on new construction during that time.

A draft plan last summer that recommended closing seven hospitals drew opposition from local officials and veterans in those communities. An independent commission examined that plan and narrowed the list of closures.

After reviewing the commission recommendations, Principi decided to close three hospitals, in Pittsburgh; Brecksville, Ohio; and Gulfport, Miss. The hospitals must have a plan for closure by September. It was not immediately clear when they would shut their doors.

A fourth hospital, in Livermore, Calif., will have all of its services except long-term care transferred elsewhere. However, a new VA nursing home will be established there.

The VA plans to continue studying ways to cut costs. Representatives from veterans groups who met with Principi on Thursday were told the agency would not close or eliminate services at any other locations before new or replacement services were available in those areas.

Veterans group leaders were reluctant to comment on the report because they had sketchy details and had promised Principi they would withhold comment until the report was publicly released today. But the groups have tried to ensure that the restructuring plans don’t hurt veterans.

“We have been concerned about trying to take things too fast, because when they looked at medical care and said what’s our access, they were not looking at mental health and long-term care,” said John A. Brieden III, American Legion national commander. “We didn’t want the VA to make decisions based on only partial information that would impact those areas.”

The department will build new hospitals in Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla. The VA also wants to build new rehabilitation centers for the blind in Biloxi, Miss., and Long Beach, and place new spinal cord centers in Denver, Minneapolis, Syracuse, N.Y., and in a city that could serve Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and part of Missouri.

Among the VA facilities that will lose services is the hospital in Canandaigua, N.Y. It had been on the list to be closed, but Principi decided instead to transfer inpatient psychiatric beds to Buffalo or Syracuse and ordered officials to come up with a plan for making the campus more efficient. The hospital was built for nearly 1,000 beds but has only 166 patients on average.

Congress will review Principi’s decision. It cannot change the plan but will determine whether to fund the changes. Congress had been unwilling to approve money for construction until the department came up with a restructuring plan.

Of about 25 million veterans in the U.S., more than 7 million are enrolled in VA healthcare.