Hopes for a rebuild in sight

Blumenthal asks VA chief for $17M to build new sterilization plant

WEST HAVEN — Sen. Richard Blumenthal has asked the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ acting chief to approve $17 million for a project to build a new sterilization plant at the West Haven VA hospital — and is likely to tie his confirmation vote to it, he said this week.

Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, which will approve or disapprove President Donald Trump’s appointment of VA Acting Secretary Peter O’Rourke, sent a letter to O’Rourke on Thursday.

Blumenthal told the New Haven Register following a briefing by VA officials that the upgrade is essential in the wake of a February 2018 inspection in which 37 of the 50 inspection team’s recommendations for corrective

action at the hospital were tied to adequate sterilization.

“What they conveyed on the phone was that many of the recommendations and the problems” that the February inspection team found “related to the scope and the scale of the facilities,” and that “the root cause” of the West Haven VA’s issues with sterilization “related to the size of the facility used for sterilization,” he said.

He said he will make it “a likely condition for my vote. I want a commitment from him that he will”

provide the resources necessary to upgrade the system.

In his letter to O’Rourke, Blumenthal wrote, “I request that you immediately approve the design and construction of a new Sterile Processing Service at the West Haven campus of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System,” Blumenthal wrote to O’Rourke.

“Congress recently provided $2 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs under the Bipartisan Budget Agreement Act of 2018 to fix medical facilities in need of repair or replacement,” Blumenthal wrote. “The $17 million required for this project is an urgent priority to ensure

that veterans have continued access to the highest quality care.

“A new SPS facility to serve the Connecticut VA Healthcare System will assure adherence to national guidelines to sterilize and properly store medical equipment,” Blumenthal wrote. “eterans should never be put at risk and left without adequate treatment due to a facility’s inadequate capacity that impacts SPS standards and procedures that prevent infection.”

Pamela Redmond, spokeswoman for the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, responded by saying, “I look forward to any support that the senator

can give us to address those ... related to the funding to improve the infrastructure at the hospital.

“Not just the senator, but the entire delegation,” she said.

The VA Connecticut Healthcare System hospital in West Haven has had issues with operating room cleanliness in the fairly recent past,

Blumenthal asked for the briefing after being contacted by the New Haven Register in mid-May about what sources said was an inspection team’s visit to the hospital in early May.

The VA later confirmed that a VA team specializing in the maintenance of sterile

conditions spent four days at the hospital, followed by a six-day visit by the national director of the program.

But the VA’s written statement said the inspection was unrelated to issues raised by the VA Inspector General’s Office in 2014.

The West Haven VA was cited by the VA Inspector General’s office in 2014 for having dirty operating rooms as well as inadequate supervision and a high absentee rate.

The New Haven Register has submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the conclusions of the SPS site team and its recommendations.

The VA has acknowledged receipt of the request but has yet to provide any documents.

Blumenthal said he was “very eager to see the reports that were done to determine what could be done to guarantee safe sterile processing while the facility is expanded and improved longer-term.”

While the May visits were from the National VA Sterile Processing Services, or SPS, program, Blumenthal said that the May inspection was by a joint commission that assesses both VA and non-VA hospitals every few years.