VA pressured by veterans to build Fitzsimons hospital

Government should build new hospital at Fitzsimons, group says

Julie Poppenand Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 21, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size

The latest plan

Here are some details of the VA's most recent proposal for health care at Fitzsimons and other places in the four-state region of Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming:

* A health care center with outpatient primary, specialty and ambulatory services

* Two new towers shared with the University of Colorado, one for inpatient care and the other for research

* 30 beds dedicated to veterans with spinal cord injuries - 18 in the outpatient center; 12 at CU

* 22-bed nursing home unit

* Post-traumatic stress disorder outpatient treatment program

* Expanded home health care and telemedicine (Internet and phone consultation)

* Expanded health care center with ambulatory surgery for Colorado Springs and Billings

* Expanded outpatient services in Cheyenne, Grand Junction, and Helena, Mont.

More Local News

Map my news

A group of increasingly impatient veterans wielding shovels Sunday said it's time for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to keep a promise made years ago to build a new hospital at Fitzsimons.

"We know how to get dirt turned," said Air Force veteran Tom Bock, former national commander of the American Legion. "If the VA is not going to build, we'll damn well dig our own."

The veterans and their congressional allies gathered for a news conference in front of a veterans memorial in Civic Center in downtown Denver.

On Friday, Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. Ed Perlmutter received planning documents for a $1.1 billion state-of-the-art stand-alone hospital to replace the aging facility in Denver.

The VA completed the documents in January but withheld them from the public, Salazar said. Accompanying documents from the VA show that the agency had shelved the plans in an attempt to cut costs, Salazar said.

The new plan places more focus on expanding care in outlying areas. It calls for a health care center with outpatient primary, specialty and ambulatory services but sharing two towers with the University of Colorado, one for inpatient care and the other for research.

At the news conference, Salazar recalled meeting with former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi 31/2 years ago about the hospital deal.

"Every time we think we're making progress we end up getting this illusion from the VA," Salazar said. "The costs have gone up because the VA has waffled over the last four years."

Talk of a new veterans hospital at the Fitzsimons medical complex in Aurora surfaced 13 years ago. In 2004, Principi identified the project as one of the agency's top medical construction priorities, according to Salazar.

Current Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake, the third person in the post to deal with the Fitzsimons project in four years, responded to questions from Salazar in a letter Friday.

In it, Peake said the project was too costly, since only $769 million had been budgeted. He also said cost was not his main concern.

"It was that building a hospital of such size would still not properly serve the majority of veterans in this area," Peake wrote, noting that many veterans from surrounding states would still have to drive to Denver for most of their health care needs.

Local veterans, though, said a free- standing, inclusive veterans hospital is still the way to go - along with outlying facilities.

Ralph Bozella, with the Colorado Board of Veterans Affairs, said last week he didn't like Peake's explanation for why the master plan was rejected.

"This is the first time we have heard of the $1.1 billion price tag," Bozella said. "We want to know where that number came from. Did they give any guidelines to the architects or did they say, 'design your heart out'? I guess they're building the Taj Mahal and we're not asking for that."

poppenj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5176

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News