FARGO, N.D. (AP) - Sen. John Hoeven said Thursday that the Veterans Affairs Health Care System in North Dakota is functioning better than hospitals in other parts of the country but that many veterans in the state have to travel long distances for treatment.
The Republican senator held a meeting with administrators from the Fargo Veterans Medical Center and representatives from state veteran organizations to talk about services in the wake of report about treatment delays and falsified records at VA centers around the country.
Hoeven said he was pleased that the Inspector General’s report did not find any irregularities with VA scheduling practices in North Dakota.
“However, we need to fully address the problem of our veterans having to make the long trek to Fargo to get services that are readily available in their communities,” Hoeven said. “This is a particularly troubling situation for veterans in western North Dakota, who face an 800-mile roundtrip journey to Fargo in all weather for routine treatments.”
The VA system in North Dakota has clinics in Bismarck, Dickinson, Grafton, Jamestown, Minot and Williston. A new facility is soon to open in Devils Lake and more clinics should be considered, Hoeven said.
“We’re doing better,” Hoeven said. “We need to ensure that veterans are getting health care services in a timely manner and they can access those services more conviently.”
The VA program serves nearly 9 million veterans. The scathing report issued Wednesday is centered around the Phoenix VA Health Care System, where the review found that about 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off an official waiting list.
Several lawmakers, including Hoeven, have called for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to step down. Fellow North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, said Thursday that she wants details about when VA officials knew about the problems and if action was taken to address them.
“I’m also reaching out to the VA directly to find out how this specific problem wasn’t addressed when it first came to the attention of VA leadership back in 2010,” Heitkamp said. “Such a lack of action and oversight for four years is deeply concerning and shows that we are failing our veterans.
“That’s just unacceptable,” she said.
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