Veterans’ health-care needs would be better served if the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would close at least three medical centers and scores of clinics, a panel has recommended. The closed facilities would be replaced by “a health care network with the right facilities, in the right places, to provide the right care for veterans in every part of the country,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough told the agency’s Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission in a March report.
McDonough also promised that VA would retain a health-care presence throughout the country. The main difference, he said, is that infrastructure would change. Out-of-date facilities would give way to new ones that reflect, for instance, the focus on outpatient rather than inpatient care. Veterans in remote areas would no longer face long travel distances to large facilities centrally located in population centers.
“If we implement these recommendations, nearly 150,000 more veterans will have primary care within 30 minutes; nearly 300,000 more veterans will have mental health care within 30 minutes; and over 375,000 more veterans will have access to outpatient specialty care within 60 minutes,” McDonough wrote. “In summary, all of that care will be delivered in modern, state-of-the-art facilities that veterans deserve.”
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