VA Might Allow Engineer Corps to Construct Hospitals

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been having a rough time over the past year as more and more news of chronic inefficiency totally destroyed what little faith both the public and returning soldiers had in its abilities to properly treat the men and women returning from war zones. As people hopefully remember from last year, the VA was rocked by scandals when investigations found out that veterans were getting turned away from hospitals, weren’t getting the care that they needed and were promised, and that hospital officials were lying and doctoring books to make it seem as though everything was going according to plan and that the veterans were receiving the proper care.

In an attempt to shield itself from all the negative criticism and bad press that it’s multiple failings have brought upon itself, the VA has just announced that it is open to the idea of allowing the United States Army Corps of Engineers to construct all big hospital projects, an area where the VA has been facing even more criticism than usual. While the decisions hasn’t been made yet, VA Deputy Secretary, Sloan D. Gibson, has announced that he and those in charge of the VA are certainly open to the idea and are going to explore all possible options before making the decision.

An example of just how poor a job the VA has done when building hospitals can be seen in Denver, Colorado. The VA has been trying to build a hospital in the area since 2010 with a completion date of 2013. The total cost of the project was estimated at $800 million with $604 million being earmarked for construction costs. However, the hospital still isn’t done and it has so far cost over $1 billion with more to be completed. This happened because the VA officials in charge of the project were pushing for a firm target price ($800 million) without even having a set plan and design in place. This meant that costs continued to climb as what should’ve been completed before construction even started was still being figured out. Hopefully the Corps will take over and our veterans won’t have to suffer anymore due to the inefficiencies of the VA.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.

from Ed Scarborough’s Construction Website http://ift.tt/1uTcmNe

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1zPHVZq