Time to move on from veterans center

TOO often, government officials maintain programs and facilities long after they outlive their usefulness. So it’s encouraging when lawmakers prioritize efficiency over tradition and parochial concerns.

The Talihina Veterans Center has been a source of controversy for several years. It was once operated as the Eastern Oklahoma Tuberculosis Sanatorium and eventually transformed into a veterans center in 1975.

While the age and physical condition of the facility creates problems, more worrisome is the challenge of hiring qualified staff at the remote site, which apparently contributed to the high-profile preventable deaths of two patients.

Problems have been so significant that the Muskogee Veterans Affairs hospitals has placed three holds on admission referrals to Talihina in the past two years. A major reason the federal system no longer makes referrals is that Talihina has gone through three medical directors (doctors) in that short time frame, despite the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs paying the director $250,000 annually, a rate 25 percent higher than the amounts paid to medical directors at Oklahoma’s other six veterans centers.

The Talihina Veterans Center now faces possible loss of its VA certification. Should that happen, the center will close and the federal government is not expected to authorize construction of any replacement.

To preserve a seventh veterans center, House Bill 3042, by Rep. Chris Kannady, R-Oklahoma City, authorizes the state Department of Veterans Affairs to “plan, develop and construct a long-term care facility for the purpose of assuming the operations of the Oklahoma Veterans Center established in Talihina.”

The Oklahoma Veterans Commission would determine the location of a replacement site based on “any and all criteria which, in its sole discretion, further the interests of Oklahoma veterans.” Any replacement site would also be subject to “geographical constraints” that are “imposed by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs to preserve and continue recognition and certification of the facility as a State Veterans Home.” The new site would likely be near Poteau.

This change makes sense. While the state operates seven veterans centers, officials say Talihina consumes roughly one-third of the state VA's appropriation. And only 11 of its 101 current residents are from Talihina. Most residents will be closer to families and loved ones once they are relocated to the new center.

The new facility would take roughly five years to build with the Talihina site maintained in the meantime. The new site would be funded with $65 million in federal funds and $35 million in state bonds.

HB 3042 passed the Oklahoma House on a 57-33 vote and now proceeds to the Senate, where a similar measure was approved last year. Senators should give this bill final approval.

Residents in the town of Talihina oppose this move, which is understandable. But the world has changed since 1921, which is why the state no longer requires a tuberculosis sanatorium. And changes since 1975 have now made continuance of the Talihina center as a veterans home nonviable — at least so long as the goal is to maximize state resources and provide the best care possible to as many veterans as possible.