ARMED FORCES NEWS VA TO FILL SOM

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced a plan to close seven VA hospitals throughout the nation in an August 4 press conference in Washington, D.C. Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Karen Fedele said the hospitals considered for closure are located in Canandaigua, N.Y.; Pittsburgh, Pa. (Highland Drive); Lexington, Ky. (Leestown); Brecksville, Ohio; Gulfport, Miss.; Livermore, Calif.; and Waco, Texas. Fedele said the VA will also open facilities in other regions while restructuring vital services in an effort to eliminate unused space while bringing services closer to where veterans live. But most veterans are voicing outrage, calling the plan a cost-cutting measure that comes at exactly the wrong time.

Historic VA hospital in Waco, Texas

"It's another slap in the face to veterans. We're still at war in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and who knows where else our troops will be sent," said Carl Flores, a retired aerospace engineer who was an artillery officer at Fort Hood in the waning days of the Korean War. Flores, 72, a rancher who lives north of Waco, says he may need health care in the coming years. "There are many veterans, a lot of them past retirement age, who need these services here and now. The Waco VA Center is now being considered for phasing out, but it serves almost 20,000 veterans in this region of Texas. This hospital has been here since the 1930s, and is an anchor in the regional VA system. To close it would be to arbitrarily throw away a wonderful, historically profound mission."

In Texas, 407,000 of the state's 1.7 million veterans are enrolled in the VA's health care system. The Waco VA hospital is also part of the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, one of the largest VA medical consortiums in the United States, with about 2,700 staff members and a budget of nearly $250 million. Two years ago it had almost 600,000 outpatient visits.

Officials say the proposal will undergo a review process first, and if approved may not be implemented for several years. Even so, Central Texans -- many of them veterans and some in wheelchairs -- are protesting. Recently, hundreds of local residents gathered at the front entrance to the Waco VA Hospital to protest.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D.-Waco, was among those leading the procession that marched in front of the VA hospital's main administrative building. He said showing support for the hospital was the only way to keep it from being shut down. "I'm convinced that if Central Texans don't speak out loudly and clearly now, the administration will make a decision to shut the Waco VA Hospital sometime late this year," said Edwards.

Even some VA employees, like nurse Doris Tucker, shouted their support for the hospital. "I'm here for everyone: the community, the workers, and the veterans," said Tucker, a VA employee for 26 years. "It's just not right. We have a large clientele. They deserve this place. And by God, we're going to go down fighting."

Katherine Turner, whose husband is a VA employee, said the VA is not making any sense. The Waco facility could house hundreds more patients, she said. "I think the big question is, why there are only 200-something beds filled? They've got the demand and could fill them right now," she said.

U.S. Army retiree Bill Mahon, a Vietnam veteran, chairman of the McLennan County Veterans Association, and a rally organizer, said: "This is our hospital, it's not the government's. We paid for it, not only in money but in our blood, and paid for it with our lives. We're not asking for anything we haven't earned. We want what was promised us and what was earned."

Many at the protest rally questioned what would happen if hundreds more troops are injured in Iraq and elsewhere. "When they come back and we shut down all the beds in America, where are they going to go? This is a service paid for by the Americans and the veterans themselves," said Fredna White, who is retired from the Waco VA after 27 years there.

The Waco Hospital handles outpatients, but also houses patients requiring long-term psychiatric care, blind patients who are part of a rehab program, and veterans hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorders and related problems. There are almost 800 people on the hospital's payroll, one of the largest employers in the city, and the closing would shut down 250 beds.

The proposal is the outgrowth of a 1999 General Accounting Office study finding that the VA was spending $1 million a day on unneeded or unused facilities. That study led to CARES, short for "Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services," an initiative to study the VA infrastructure and identify ways to provide care in the future.

The Waco VA Hospital, also known as the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), is a cluster of 24 structures on a 500-acre campus that opened for business on May 8, 1932 five miles south of Waco. The architectural style of the buildings is Spanish Revival and Colonial Revival. Its initial capacity was 308 patients. The facility was expanded once in 1939 to include bed space for 1,151 patients, and then again during World War II; its capacity was 2,040 by 1945. Waco was one of the first Veterans Administration facilities to have an approved residency program, and in the 1940s was the only one in the state devoted entirely to the treatment of mental illnesses. It served as a teaching center for professional education in neuropsychiatry, clinical psychology, and psychiatric nursing.

The opening of other VA hospitals in the state took some pressure off of the Waco facility. By 1972, the center was able to reduce its available bed space to 1,184. In 1990, the medical center had 684 hospital beds and 160 nursing home beds; 340 additional beds were out of service because of construction projects.

The hospital's medical programs included a day treatment center, a mental hygiene clinic, rehabilitation for alcoholics and the blind, and a community residential-care program. The center also had the state's only inpatient post-traumatic stress unit. In the 1990s, the hospital renovated two medical buildings, an admissions and canteen area, and built a new plant to air-condition the entire facility. The center was proposed as a national historic site in 1991.

The VA is seeking public comment through November on the recommended changes. VA Secretary Anthony Principi is expected to make a final decision in December.

JOHN FLORES served four years active duty at the Coast Guard search-rescue station in New Orleans. He is author of When the River Dreams, a biography of Marine Sgt. Alfredo Gonzalez. Awarded a personal citation from Marine Commandant Charles Krulak in 1998 for series of stories detailing Sgt. Gonzalez's life, he is at work on a book about PT 109.