Long wait for VA hospital in Denver area nearly over

DENVER — It’s more than $1 billion over budget and five years behind schedule, but an elaborate new veterans hospital is finally ready to open in suburban Denver with the promise of state-of-the-art medical care.

The $1.7 billion Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center made it through nearly a decade of management blunders, legal battles, federal investigations and congressional hearings.

Lawmakers were so angry they stripped the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs of the authority to manage big projects in the future and gave it to the Army’s construction experts, the Corps of Engineers.

Veterans say they are frustrated by the slow and tortuous path but relieved the hospital is finally done.

Outpatient services will begin moving from the old hospital in Denver to the new facility Friday, 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, glasswalled 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.

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 more than $1.7 billion.

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 final cost ended up being just under $1.7 billion, according to VA numbers.

The Associated Press file The Veterans Administration in Aurora, Colo., opened Saturday, years behind schedule and more than three times over budget. But veterans are glad to have the state-of-the-art facility nevertheless.