Officials intend to fight proposed Leeds VA closure

March 22, 2022 | Chris Maza and G. Michael Dobbs
news@thereminder.com

The Department of Veterans Affairs recommended closing the Edward P. Boland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds as part of its Asset and Infrastructure Review report, which was published on March 14.
Reminder Publishing photo by G. Michael Dobbs

WESTERN MASS. – A federal proposal could mean the elimination of the area’s only full-service medical facility for veterans, but legislators and advocates don’t intend to take it lying down.

In the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) report released on March 14, Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Denis McDonough made recommendations on the future structure of the VA’s resources nationwide, including retiring the Edward P. Boland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Leeds. Under this proposal, resources and programming would be reallocated throughout the area the VA identifies as the New England region’s West Market, which includes the four western counties of Massachusetts and all of Connecticut.

“VA came to these recommendations by asking ourselves one question above all else: what’s best for the veterans we serve? Because that is our number one goal, today and every day. That’s what our Asset and Infrastructure Review recommendations are all about,” said McDonough in an announcement that accompanied the report. “We’ve spent the last several weeks and months communicating about this with VA employees, union partners, state partners, veteran service organizations, Congress, and more. I’m continuing to consult with our unions, and will do so moving forward, because I so appreciate the strong partnership we have with them.”

In addition to the Leeds facility, the current Springfield multi-specialty community based outpatient clinic would be closed and a new clinic would be established “in the vicinity of Springfield” in an area “directly adjacent to I-90 and I-91.” Outpatient services in Leeds would be relocated to this new Springfield facility. Residential rehabilitation treatment and community living services currently offered in Leeds would be transferred to the VA’s facility in Newington, CT.

The report also recommends “establishing a strategic collaboration to provide inpatient mental health services,” which would no longer be available in the area through the VA once the Leeds facility closes. The closest remaining VA-specific inpatient mental health services clinic would be in Connecticut at the West Haven VA Medical Center. Urgent care services would also no longer be offered locally through the VA.

The VA justified the recommendations, citing what it believed to be the sub-optimal condition of current facility in Leeds, which was built in 1923 and “does not meet current design standards.” They also pointed to a shift in the enrollee population. The report notes the largest concentrations of veterans lie along the Interstate 91 corridor between Springfield and New Haven, CT, noting the area to be “largely urban.” The move, the VA asserted, would move services closer to more veterans. The report, which cites figures from 2019, indicated 48,183 veteran enrollees lived within 60 minutes of the Springfield facility and 67,180 were within 60 minutes of the Newington facility, compared to 28,049 within a 60-minute drive of the Leeds location.
The creation of this report and its publication in the Federal Register is the first step in a process outlined by the VA Mission Act. The report is also submitted to Congress and an AIR Commission, which is appointed by the president. The AIR Commission will conduct public hearings as part of its review of the report and its recommendations before issuing its recommendations to the president in 2023.

Legislators on the federal and state level voiced opposition to the proposal and their intention to fight it. State Sen. John Velis, a Westfield Democrat and veteran of the Army Reserves who chairs the state’s Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs, called the recommendations a “slap in the face” and “unconscionable” in a statement to Reminder Publishing.

“This recommendation is a slap in the face to the more than 24,000 veterans who receive treatment at the Northampton VA and who have served our nation at the highest levels. I have profound concerns with this proposal and the impact it would have on veterans in our region,” he said. “Telling veterans that they can drive an hour more to the Connecticut VA is simply unacceptable and just like the U.S. Government Accountability Office, I do not believe that our already overstrained community providers have the bandwidth to make up these services, especially the critical behavioral health services provided at Northampton.

“Transportation is already a challenge for our veterans and it is unconscionable that we would consider pushing them further away from the medical care that they so desperately depend on. As chair of the Veterans’ and Federal Affairs Committee, I intend to call a public hearing on this proposal if it continues to move forward and will do everything in my power to prevent this closure.”

Congressman Richard Neal and James McGovern issued a joint statement, saying, “We strongly support keeping the Northampton VA Medical Center open for the thousands of veterans in Western and Central Massachusetts who access its quality health care each and every day.”

A spokesman for McGovern’s office also said the congressman plans to strongly oppose the proposed closure of the Leeds facility.

Thomas Belton, the veterans’ agent for Springfield, believes that Neal would effectively block the proposal to close the facility. He believes that if the plan to close the center in Leeds does come about it would take six to seven years to accomplish.

He said the report has been “leaked” and that the news has been “running like wildfire” through the veterans’ community.

He stressed there has been no decision to close the center but added it has “been put on the chopping block.”

If the plan had been finalized and was more imminent, Belton said he would have a stronger response and would be mobilizing veterans to oppose it.
Like Belton, Steve Connor, director of the Central Hampshire Veterans’ Services District, hopes the involvement of federal lawmakers like Neal and McGovern will make an impact. However, he indicated that a more active approach is needed to fight the proposal and he intends to be part of it.

“The commission is supposed to take the recommendations and get input. We haven’t been told who is on the commission or how to contact them, but we want them to see what we see. This is a national project and we are in Western Massachusetts, so how much impact are we going to have? I don’t know, but we are going to work with our congressional delegation,” he said. “A report with final recommendations will go to the president and it also have to go to Congress, which has to allocate the money. There are things that can derail it and opportunities to change it and we’re going to try to do that.”

Connor opined that the VA’s findings in the report are based more on balance sheets and accounting than the needs of veterans. He accused federal officials of paying lip service to those who served while simultaneously disrespecting them with proposals like the one presented for Leeds.

“The way the recommendations were made, while they said they looked at many different factors, it looks like they were just looking at numbers,” he said, later adding, “I hear this ‘anything for our veterans’ talk and they’ll throw a ceremony for them and say nice things, but on the other side, they’re sticking them in the back, in my opinion.”

Considering the age of the building, Collins said it is in “good shape” thanks to previous investments made in it. He did acknowledge there could be a case for relocating certain services, but found the concept of completely closing down the site indefensible.

“If they wanted to downsize some of the services, I get it, and I get they are trying to get closer to the population, but pulling medical and mental health services and evacuating the facility is going to have a profound negative impact on thousands of veterans,” he said.

Speaking more specifically, Connor said he has serious concerns for the future care of veterans who rely on the Leeds facility for mental health services.

“[Leeds] is essentially a mental health hospital; that is what the majority of veterans are there for and it has one of the best PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] wards in the country,” he said, adding the VA’s proposal to utilize community-based mental health services doesn’t account for specific needs of veterans nor does it realistically consider the capacities those facilities.

“One of the things they talk a lot about is ‘care in the community’ – that veterans can find care in the community and don’t need to use the VA to receive needed services. They cite, for instance, that Baystate is opening a brand new hospital in Holyoke,” he said, referring to the 23,000-square-foot facility with 150 beds. Officials broke ceremonial ground on that facility, which will be run in a partnership between Baystate Health and Kindred Behavioral Health, on March 8. “Well, the reality is in our community we already don’t have enough beds for those in need of mental health services – that’s why they’re building this new hospital in the first place.

“We can’t even meet the needs of our community and now we’re going to throw in our veterans who have very unique needs? The veteran population needs attention from those who understand military culture, the nature of their conditions, even their reactions to stressors. Those people don’t know how to handle it.”

Echoing Velis’ concerns on travel and transportation, Connor worried that veterans in rural communities would not seek needed care. Collins’ district serves veterans in Northampton, Amherst, Hadley, Williamsburg, Pelham, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Worthington, Chester and Middlefield.

“The people who rely on Leeds are mostly rural veterans. I serve 11 different communities and many of them are hilltowns,” he said. “Some veterans will go to Leeds, but even if the hospital was in downtown Northampton, I don’t know if some of them would even go there. But if you extend their travel by 35 or 40 minutes by making them go to Springfield or an hour or more to go to Newington or Worcester, they’re not going to go and get the care they need.”

Collins also found the relocation of community housing untenable and said he feared for the homeless veteran population that receives shelter in Leeds. Additionally, many veterans are now in permanent housing through the Soldier On, located on the VA center’s campus, he noted.

“There is lodging for 30 homeless veterans as well as permanent housing that is partially owned by veterans,” he said. “Many of them are older and have been homeless so they are medically fragile and rely on the VA for their medical care.”

The complete 60-page AIR report for New England is available on the VA’s website at https://www.va.gov/AIRCOMMISSIONREPORT/docs/VISN01-Market-Recommendation.pdf.

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