Darrell Myers praises his Department of Veterans Affairs doctors and relies exclusively on the VA for medical care. But last month, a routine colonoscopy at the VA’s aging Denver medical center morphed into a massive bleeding episode, a four-day hospital admission and a blood test mix-up. While he was there, an electrical fire erupted on his floor, and his bathroom door was taped shut.
Ralph Bozella arrived early at the Denver hospital last month for a cancer test. He and other patients ended up sitting in hospital gowns in a hallway because the biopsy room had been commandeered for something more urgent.
“If anybody thinks we don’t need a new hospital,” he said, “come on down and check yourself in.”
Last month, a new price estimate for a medical campus being built in Aurora sent shock waves through Congress.
The VA originally estimated the Aurora hospital could be built for $328 million. Construction began three years ago with a $600 million budget, and Congress has authorized spending up to $800 million. But after the Army Corps of Engineers stepped in to investigate its status and end a stalemate with the construction contractor, the VA issued a stunning new estimate: $1.73 billion.
The 182-bed hospital had been expected to open this year. Now the date is anyone’s guess. VA officials hope for 2017.
Like their congressmen, Colorado veterans are baffled, angry and worried about the fate of a medical center that has rung up the worst cost overruns in VA history.
They wonder how the price could rise more than $600 million above what contractor Kiewit-Turner had estimated. They don’t know whether the VA and the Army Corps consulted the contractor in developing a new guess. They ask why the breakdown of future costs includes a flat $700 million more to Kiewit-Turner.
Some ask how many more veterans will die before the new hospital opens.
“VA officials come down and talk to other VA officials, contractor reps and local politicians,” said Artie Guerrero, a local vet who began urging the VA to build a new Denver hospital 20 years ago. “Vets can’t get answers.”
The main building of the Denver hospital, built in 1951 and renovated in 1986, is showing incurable signs of age. As many as three patients are crowded into single rooms. Its waiting areas look dingy. Plumbing problems deprived the men’s first-floor bathroom of hot water last year.
The new hospital is designed to serve 83,000 veterans. At the new facility, veterans hope for more than a prettier and more private environment.
They say a new spinal-cord injury center will offer treatment near home to seriously wounded veterans who now fly to Albuquerque or Seattle for services. War veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder will get their own treatment area, they say, along with growing numbers of female veterans.
“It’s critical,” said Tom Bock, a veteran who worked on B-52 bombers during the Vietnam War.
He cites, for example, the dire circumstances of a friend hospitalized at the Denver VA with Lou Gehrig’s disease. “He had a tracheotomy. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t use a telephone, and his room had no wireless connection,” Bock said. “His communication was stifled because of the building.”
VA spokesman Daniel Warvi said he agrees the new hospital will offer many advantages, including a “world class” spinal-care center, private rooms and a separate treatment area for veterans suffering from PTSD.
In the meantime, the VA is making the most of its current hospital.
“Overall, the physical condition of our facility continues to be a measured, maintained and functioning facility,” he said.
When and whether the new medical campus will be finished have become debatable questions.
Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who leads the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, has demanded accountability and firings of VA officials before Congress hands the Aurora project more money.
Even some veterans call it a Taj Mahal, saying they wanted a hospital tower, not a sprawling campus of 14 buildings with clinics, diagnostic and treatment centers, a research building, a long-term care community and parking garages.
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, an Army and Marine Corps veteran, has proposed canceling VA employee performance bonuses and using the money to complete the project. He says those bonuses total about $360 million a year, or enough to keep construction going until the hospital opens.
He fears the alternatives are unpalatable. Taking money from other VA projects to finance a disastrous one in Colorado “would be hugely controversial,” he said, and an extra congressional appropriation might go nowhere.
“I see no appetite for that in my discussions with appropriations committee members. Zero,” he said.
Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson, during a visit to the site Thursday, called Coffman’s proposal a lousy idea, prompting Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, to ask how the VA plans to pay for the hospital.
“As the final cost estimate for the project currently stands at an astounding $1.73 billion, American taxpayers deserve a plan that is accountable and transparent,” Bennet wrote to Gibson. “As such, the plan must focus on identifying funds from existing monies appropriated to your agency.”
Meanwhile, VA officials have deflected questions about details of their $1.73 billion cost estimate, saying they are working with the Army Corps to review cost and schedule estimates on several medical center projects.
Myers, an Army veteran who edits an American Legion newspaper in Denver, has no complaints about the treatment he gets as a VA patient.
“I get very good care from my doctors,” he said. “I use VA for all my medical needs.”
He cannot say the same about the hospital conditions that veterans endure while the VA struggles to finish its new state-of-the-art facility.
Last month, he went to the VA for a colonoscopy procedure, which “went great,” he said. But three days later, “I was passing blood, just tons of blood and went into the hospital. That’s when the fun began.”
First, “in a patient’s room, they accidentally started an electrical fire,” he said, and he was moved to the other end of the floor. Then a nurse who drew his blood mixed up the samples, he said, and the staff mistakenly tried to give him an emergency blood transfusion.
Finally, there was the toilet issue. Myers uses an oxygen tank to help breathe. He shared a room with two other patients, who shared a bathroom with patients next door.
When a patient with a communicable disease was admitted to the adjoining room, “they taped off the door so we couldn’t go in there,” he said. “You had to go down the hallway and look for a bathroom.”
Warvi said the error with the blood sample was identified and fixed by nurses before any harm was done. He confirmed that shared bathrooms can be taped off to prevent the spread of disease.
“Almost all bathrooms are shared — the Denver (hospital) only has 16 private bathrooms,” Warvi said.
Ralph Bozella, a Vietnam War veteran, went to the hospital last month for a procedure he knew would be painful and traumatic: a biopsy for prostate cancer.
But when he arrived, the biopsy room had been taken for a higher priority, so he had to wait in the hallway for a makeshift alternative.
“I’m first. We’re not moving,” he said. “Four of us sitting in wheelchairs in our gowns while an exam room is converted into a biopsy room.”
Warvi said Bozella contacted him about his concerns, and Warvi relayed them to the clinical staff.
Six miles east, the replacement medical center looks far from complete. One building on East Colfax Avenue displays a finished exterior. Some have windows. Others remain sheathed with protective plastic.
Guerrero, a Vietnam War veteran who uses a wheelchair, wonders when — or if — veterans with spinal-cord injuries will finally get a VA hospital treatment center in Aurora.
Guerrero has advocated for a new hospital since 1995. He visits the construction site several times a month, “and it makes me mad that so many people made a mistake and they’re not accountable,” he said.
“Nobody’s getting fired. Everybody’s getting retired, and bonuses with it.”
David Olinger: 303-954-1498, dolinger@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dolingerdp
