The VA’s top leader toured the Dayton VA Medical Center and the adjacent Dayton National Cemetery and met with employees and veterans Friday on one of more than 100 visits to VA centers he’s made nationwide since taking the high-profile job last July.
The Army veteran and former Proctor & Gamble leader also told reporters Friday the VA must work nationally to regain the trust of veterans hurt by long patient wait times and a claims-benefit backlog, among other woes that have plagued the embattled agency. But he also indicated significant progress had been made to improve delivery of health care and lessen the claims backlog in an ongoing reorganization of the VA more focused on patient needs.
“We know that historically across the nation trust has been compromised with the VA and we know that we’re going to have to earn that back one veteran at a time,” he said. “…Across the nation we’ve had some problems with access, transparency, accountability and integrity, which are all well-documented, but we have made sure that our employees recommit themselves to our mission, recommit themselves to our values. … I’m convinced that we have the right framework in place to continue to make progress nationally.”
In 2012, Dayton won a competition for the VA archives, McDonald said. But since then, a lack of money stymied the plan to bring the archives to the Civil War-era campus. Funding to shore up aging VA infrastructure to ensure safety of buildings across the nation from dangers like earthquakes must come first, he said.
“As a result of that, something like an archives would fall to the bottom of the priority list,” McDonald said. Still, he said Dayton would be a “good place” for the project.
“We need to make a decision,” he said. “We need to go back (and) look at the budget, but then we need to start fund-raising efforts to get the job done here.”
Three years ago, estimates placed the cost of an archive that would serve as a nexus for a national veterans museum and educational center at $10.6 million to restore historic buildings. The archives itself might employ about 25 people. A Dayton Development Coalition document then suggested 440 retail, tourism and educational jobs could be created within five years.
The VA would welcome a “strategic partner” to make the archives a reality, the secretary added. “Anybody who would want to help, we’d embrace them.”
VA leaders also appear close to signing a patient-sharing agreement with the Department of Defense to let VA patients in Ohio seek medical care at Wright-Patterson Medical Center. The Dayton VA and the base hospital have a current agreement to share medical services in certain areas, but the new agreement would greatly expand the number of patients who could receive medical care at Wright-Patterson.
The “master sharing agreement” would create the Buckeye Federal Health Consortium, according to Col. John M. Devillier, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson.
The consortium of hospitals would give veterans more access to health care at a discounted rate and shorten patient wait times, according to Devillier. And airmen who are medics would get more patient experience, improving service members readiness for deployment, Devillier said in a written statement.
He anticipated final approval in late April or early May.
In a March 19 letter to McDonald, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, encouraged McDonald to work to ratify the agreement that needs approval of both the Defense Department and the VA.
McDonald noted the success of military hospital-VA medical center partnerships in Texas and Nevada. “Strategic partnerships are the answer to providing the best care for veterans,” he said.
In his letter, Turner also asked McDonald to support the transfer of some land back to the Dayton VA from the cemetery. About three acres are needed for a new straightaway entrance off Gettysburg Avenue to replace the existing curving entrance, said Michael Henshaw, cemetery director. The cemetery, he added, has no plans to expand.
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