McKeon to Push for Smaller VA Hospital

Despite recently announced plans to tear down the quake-damaged Sepulveda Veterans Administration hospital, Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) will push for construction of a 50-bed mini-hospital on the site, a spokesman said Wednesday.

McKeon, who represents the district in which the hospital is located, hopes to meet with VA Secretary Jesse Brown soon to urge that some in-patient capacity be retained after the 431-bed hospital is demolished.

Brown announced last month that the VA will spend $115 million to tear down the hospital--the centerpiece of the sprawling, 22-building VA medical center in North Hills--and build a state-of-the-art outpatient care facility in its stead.

The VA frantically evacuated 331 patients from the medical center after the Northridge earthquake and transferred them to other VA facilities in West Los Angeles, Long Beach and Loma Linda. The temblor rendered the hospital uninhabitable.

The announcement that the hospital would be torn down angered many San Fernando Valley area veterans who have long used the medical center, which also provides nursing-home, mental-health and substance-abuse services. Those facilities will remain despite the demolition of the hospital.

McKeon spokesman Armando Azarloza said McKeon met Tuesday with medical center Director Perry C. Norman and other local VA officials and that they suggested that a smaller hospital be built.

Azarloza said hospital officials said the facility would be a boon to veterans from the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, who will have to drive another 15 miles from North Hills to get medical treatment in West Los Angeles. In emergency cases, such a long drive might jeopardize veterans’ health, Azarloza said.

Azarloza said McKeon was also concerned whether the views of Norman and other local officials were adequately considered by VA decision-makers in Washington before the demolition announcement was made March 14.

Norman said she supports Brown’s conversion plan, but added: “We are not opposed to some time in the future having an in-patient presence again.”

She said that before Brown made his decision to tear down the hospital, local officials proposed several alternatives, including construction of a smaller hospital with 100 to 120 beds.

Norman said, however, that a hospital of 50 or 60 beds “isn’t . . . economical.” She also noted that even with the extra Sepulveda patients, the West Los Angeles hospital still has nearly 200 empty beds.