Hospital stays open, and outpatient clinic
to be added, Schumer says
con't from Local News
“I wouldn’t call the report an A-plus,
but no matter how you look at it, it’s a solid ‘A,’” Schumer said. “I would
have to say that we’ve pulled off a minor miracle here.”
Schumer said Principi has tempered a plan
to move up to 50 acute-care psychiatric beds from the 248-bed Canandaigua
hospital.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said
Thursday she won’t be satisfied until Principi agrees never to move veterans’
beds from Canandaigua.
Citing Canandaigua’s ranking in recent
years at the top of the 168-hospital V.A. network for quality of psychiatric
care, Clinton said moving beds “cannot be justified.”
Schumer said Principi assured him on
Thursday that if beds are moved in the future they will be relocated only
after evaluating the needs of individual patients.
“What the secretary has done is give us
time to fight the move of any of those beds,” Schumer said. “And if we wage
that fight with half the effort that we put into keeping the hospital open,
it’s another fight that the community will win.”
V.A. officials locally and in Washington
and New York City said they were under strict orders on Thursday not to
comment on Principi’s plan until he makes it public in a speech today in Las
Vegas, where he reportedly will unveil plans to build a new V.A. medical
center. New facilities will also be built in Orlando and outside Denver.
Principi intends to close V.A. hospitals
in Brecksville, Ohio, outside Cleveland; Gulfport, Miss.; and one of three V.A.
hospitals in Pittsburgh, USA Today reported. The newspaper also
reported that Syracuse will get one of four new spinal-cord-injury centers.
Locally, community leaders and veterans
reacted with exultation when told of Schumer’s report on his meeting with
Principi.
“I’m almost in tears to hear such good
news,” said Korean War veteran Ralph Calabrese, 76.
Calabrese was a key organizer of
community protests of a plan drafted early last year by William Feeley,
director of the Albany-based V.A. Region Two Network that includes Canandaigua
and all V.A. health centers in central and western New York.
Feeley, who is to answer questions on the
Principi plan at a 2:30 p.m. news conference at the Canandaigua V.A. today,
had advocated closing the Canandaigua hospital and transferring all patients
to other facilities.
After massive public protests and heated
opposition from all members of the state’s congressional delegation, a
15-member Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) Commission
in February recommended that Canandaigua remain open but that up to 50 beds be
transferred.
Calabrese on Thursday reiterated his
opposition to the relocation of any hospital beds and said that the proposed
new outpatient clinic promised by Principi should be built on the existing
172-acre V.A. campus.
Schumer said Principi promised that the
clinic would be built “in Canandaigua” at a site selected jointly by area
veterans and community leaders.
“What the veterans and the community want
is to build on this great V.A. facility that we’ve already got here to serve
our young men and women that will be coming back from the awful combat they’re
going through now in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Calabrese said.
Clinton agreed.
“The facility is there, it’s beautiful
and it’s efficient,” Clinton said. “It wouldn’t make sense to put (the new
outpatient clinic) anywhere else.”
David Baker, director of the Canandaigua
Chamber of Commerce and spokesman for the We Care campaign of area business
and political leaders to save the local V.A., praised Principi’s plan.
The V.A., with about 800 full- and
part-time employees who serve a regional veteran population of about 25,000
veterans, contributes an estimated $30 million annually to the regional
economy.
”It’s just excellent. It’s more than we
could have hoped for,” said Baker. “It’s very encouraging that they want to
expand by building a new outpatient clinic in the community. But none of this
would have happened without the support this community has received from
Congressman (Amo) Houghton and from Senators Schumer and Clinton.”
Schumer and Clinton in turn praised the
efforts of veterans, V.A. employees and the community that rallied behind the
planned hospital closure.
Of the total 175,000 letters written in
protest of plans to close and consolidate services at V.A. centers around the
country, more than 109,000 were written in opposition to closure of the
Canandaigua V.A.
Clinton said the letter-writing campaign,
along with local rallies and protests, were the key to saving the hospital and
that such continued efforts will help preserve V.A. beds.
”The real credit for this victory goes to
the veterans and the community,” Clinton said. “It was a team effort.”
JJONES@DemocratandChronicle.com
Includes reporting by USA Today.
To access our archived news click here
Keeping Our Members Informed
| 
