Veterans around Kansas City may have to wait longer and travel farther if VA closes rural facilities

Staff at Kansas Metropolis-area Veterans Affairs facilities say the potential closure of a number of services within the area can be unhealthy for veterans.

Veterans and members of the American Federation of Authorities Workers (AFGE) District 9 union protested throughout the road from the Heartland VA Community on Tuesday. They are saying they oppose the Division of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) proposed closure of many services throughout the nation.

The proposal was made by the VA to the Asset and Infrastructure Evaluate (AIR) Fee to overtake its well being community to assist handle recruitment challenges and reducing demand for providers in some areas. If applied and permitted by Congress, the federal government would shut 172 of its greater than 800 clinics. The division additionally recommends growing its medical specialty clinics by 56%, to 388, and relying extra on non-public sector suppliers.

Janet Constance, a PTSD psychologist on the VA in Kansas Metropolis and a member of the AFGE Native 9, worries that regional closures will lower entry for veterans who want specialised care or stay in rural areas.

“This can be very necessary that our veterans proceed to have entry to specialty providers inside their communities and closures are gonna imply longer wait occasions, longer drives, and that is simply unacceptable,” Constance mentioned. “Our veterans have already paid for his or her care with their service – they should proceed to obtain that prime notch care. If extra veterans come to Kansas metropolis, that is gonna result in doubtlessly a lower in well timed care for everybody.”

These adjustments would have a serious impression on the Kansas Metropolis area. If permitted, the VA would:

• Discontinue emergency, inpatient medical and outpatient surgical providers on the Topeka, Kansas, medical middle
• Scale back the 23-bed inpatient medical middle in Leavenworth, Kansas, to a 12-bed remark hospital
• Shut the Platte Metropolis, Missouri, community-based outpatient clinic and open a brand new web site in northwest Kansas Metropolis
• Shut a community-based outpatient clinic in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and change it with a brand new web site in Liberty, Missouri
• Set up a brand new stand-alone group residing middle – or nursing house – in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri, about 10 miles southeast of the Kansas Metropolis medical middle.

In between chants of “Don’t privatize my VA,” and “They fought for us, we struggle for them,” AFGE members spoke about how the closures would trigger mass layoffs and drive many into costlier, non-public care.

Eugene Martin, an AFGE native 9 member, says these adjustments put veterans prone to discovering their very own non-public healthcare.

“Now we have tons of veterans in the USA who want healthcare and who’re serviced by VA hospitals and clinics. I merely do not need to see our veterans must go discover healthcare elsewhere,” mentioned Martin. “There are various veterans who stay out in rural areas. Lots of them who beforehand went to outlying clinics will now must go a protracted distance to attempt to discover service.”

Elevated reliance on the Kansas Metropolis medical middle and personal suppliers would add sufferers to space hospitals. Keena Smith, a veteran and legislative political organizer for AFGE, thinks the proposed adjustments solely profit higher-ups who would revenue from the privatization of the VA. As an alternative, she desires to see a revitalization of the VA.

“The healthcare system is already fractured. They’re already drained, they’re already exhausted. And these veterans have paid a lot – they sacrificed a lot,” Smith mentioned. “The cash that they use to outsource could possibly be [used] to fill these positions which are vacant inside VA hospitals, to revamp and rework these services that want the work. I simply assume it is a slap in a veteran’s house to inform them that we hear you, however we’re not listening as a result of we need to contract this out.”

Kevin Ellis works on the VA medical middle in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and is president of the AFGE native 2338. He attended the protest as a result of the plan would cut back his medical middle to a nursing house. In his small city, that may drive lots of these they look after to drive three hours to the closest hospital.

“Surveys have instructed us time and again and over: veterans really feel valued after they come to the VA medical middle, not after they go to the general public,” Ellis mentioned. “I need [the VA] to cease this, come sit with us and be taught firsthand what the ramifications can be.”

The AIR Fee may have a 12 months to assessment the VA proposal and make its personal proposals to the White Home. If it strikes ahead, Congress must settle for the entire suggestions.

Protests additionally befell lately in New York, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota.