VA Hospital Delays Frustrate Vets, Congress
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - The latest developments in the long overdue and over budget Veterans Administration hospital in Aurora have put the VA in court with its contractor.
A federal appeals board ruled the VA breached its contract with the contractor, Kiewit-Turner, and allowed the company to shut down work on the project.
On Wednesday a plan was announced to get the project going again.
"We shouldn't have to fight for something already approved by Congress," said Desert Storm Veteran Robert Rhodes.
Rhodes said the VA has needed expansion for years. He hasn't been able to schedule an appointment because there are such long delays and backlogs of vets waiting for treatment. The only VA hospital in Colorado has 128 beds for 500,000 veterans.
"My appointments are going to go from two months to three months and keep getting pushed back because of the number of people in there," said Rhodes.
The VA believes the hospital is 60 percent finished but Kiewit-Turner said it isn't even one-third complete.
Kiewit-Turner says the Veterans Administration only budgeted $600 million for a design costing $1 billion.
Rep. Mike Coffman has been a harsh critic of how the VA is handling the project.
"Fourteen hundred workers are going to lose their jobs before the holiday. This is really a tragedy," said Coffman.
He says he'll work with other Colorado lawmakers to find the additional money to get the hospital built.
"What the VA is saying is, 'We'll pay you the $107 million that you're owed. Let's negotiate a 60-day, short term bridge contract for a couple more months and right at the beginning of that, that Army Corps of Engineers will step in and negotiate a long-term contract with KT to bring the project to completion,' " said Coffman.
Congress will likely be involved to bring down the cost before construction fully resumes.
"I'm going to make a case before Congress that there's new leadership here and we can't do anything to erase the mistakes of the past," said Coffman.
