Colorado VA hospital plagued by delays, high costs to open
schedule slip has been unfortunate. Yeah, it’s all been unfortunate,” said Leanne Wheeler, an Air Force veteran who gets VA health care in Denver.
But “we’re glad to have it,” she said.
The VA plans a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday. Outpatient services will begin moving from the old hospital in Denver to the new facility on July 27, and hospitalized veterans will be transferred starting Aug. 4.
The bright, airy complex in the east Denver suburb of Aurora is a collection of a dozen large buildings connected by a long, soaring, glass-walled corridor. From above, it looks like square leaves growing from a vine.
Most patients will have private rooms, with space for family to stay overnight. Operating rooms have easy access to the intensive care unit as well as pre- and post-operation rooms.
When it’s in full operation, the new hospital will offer services that the old one does not, including clinics for spinal cord injuries, mammography, PET scans for cancer, prosthetics and aquatic therapy.
But a post-traumatic stress disorder program will remain at the old campus for now. It was axed from the new facility when the VA tried to rein in soaring costs.
The old hospital is “kind of dingy, depressing,” with a dreary, military feel, said John Keene, a Marine Corps veteran and executive director of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1 in Denver.
“I’ve heard anecdotally that some veterans don’t use the VA because just walking into the facility can bring back memories,” he said.
The new hospital should be more inviting, Keene said.
It has been in the works since 2002, when the VA proposed making it part of a University of Colorado hospital then in the planning stages. But the agency dropped that idea when veterans said they wanted a separate facility.
In 2006, the VA hired a design team, and in 2009, the agency estimated it could build the new hospital for $537 million and finish by 2013, according to a government investigation.
Six years later, the price tag had soared to than $1.7 billion.
What went wrong, according to multiple investigations, was that VA officials opted for a lavish design and tried to use a complicated contract they didn’t fully understand. They failed to get the designers and builders to agree on plans and costs, and they didn’t oversee the work closely enough, investigators said. more
Congress was furious, holding multiple hearings and demanding that the VA fire anyone responsible. But in the end, no one was let go or criminally charged .
The VA said it was ready to fire one executive and was investigating another, but both retired before the agency could act.
Other officials were demoted or transferred.