HUNTINGTON — West Virginia’s congressional delegation sent a letter this week asking President Joe Biden to reject recommendations that would gut three of the state’s Veterans Affairs medical centers.
The Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) report was released earlier this year as part of the 2018 VA Mission Act passed by Congress to review options to “modernize facilities and realign priorities” within the VA health care system nationally.
The recommendations call for three West Virginia Veterans Affairs medical centers — the Hershel “Woody” Williams VA Medical Center in Huntington, the Beckley VA Medical Center and the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg — to discontinue inpatient medical, surgical and emergency medical services, along with more minor recommendations for smaller facilities. The facilities would instead outsource those procedures to publicly accessible hospitals.
If followed, the moves would result in the loss of about 258 hospital beds in the state.
In the letter, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., along with Reps. Carol Miller, David McKinley and Alex Mooney, all R-W.Va., expressed “grave concern” with the recommendations made for the West Virginia-based facilities.
The delegation wrote that the recommendations were made based on faulty data and assumptions that fail to consider the needs of veterans and the capacity of the health care system. The letter referred to a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office report titled “Incomplete Information Hinders Usefulness of Market Assessments for VA Facility Realignment.”
Among other issues, the report said a review of the assessments found more information was needed to determine the supply of, demand for and care from non-VA providers.
During a news conference Thursday, Capito said she had heard an uproar about the possibility of the cuts. Capito said those who put together the recommendations missed the mark, not even communicating with the local hospital system to know if they had the capacity.
“… West Virginia veterans are satisfied for the most part with their VA health care. They like going to the VA, and they like the services that VA has provided for many, many years,” she said.
Currently, 54 of West Virginia’s 55 counties are designated as partial or whole health professional shortage areas with enough staff for 70% of the licensed hospital beds. The delegation said redirecting veterans to under-staffed hospitals would extend wait times, increase staff shortages and reduce health outcomes for all West Virginians.
“West Virginia’s rural status relies on a delicate balance between small rural hospitals and larger rural referral centers. The closure of any one facility puts significant pressure on the rest of the system. Rural patients are, on average, older and sicker, and West Virginia has the most vulnerable population in the country, making our current (health professional shortage area) status an already tenuous position,” the delegation said.
Biden is tasked with appointing individuals to a commission to review the recommendations, which they must approve or disapprove of by February 2023. The president has until March 30, 2023, to approve the initial or revised recommendations made by the commission, and after that Congress will have 45 days to make its approval.
Capito said she recently joined in on a bill with Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., to negate the entire process. The bill would kill the commission as a whole. She said the clock is ticking for the recommendations to be approved and the commission hasn’t even been appointed yet.
“This has a time clock on it. I believe it ends at the end of next year, this report,” she said. “So it seems to me that there’s a real disconnect.”