WASHINGTON – Fulfilling President Obama’s pledge to “stand with our veterans as they face new challenges,” Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced today that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will build a stand-alone replacement hospital for its existing facility in Denver. The new facility will be located on the grounds of the Army’s former Fitzsimons hospital in Aurora.
The new medical center will provide Denver-area Veterans with a full range of medical, laboratory, research and counseling services, including services for Veterans with spinal cord injuries (SCI) and other disabilities.
VA will also create new Health Care Centers, which provide ambulatory care and same-day surgical services, in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Billings, Mont. The Colorado Springs facility will be managed in collaboration with the Department of Defense. VA also plans to add eight new health care facilities in rural areas throughout the region.
The new medical center in Denver will include a 30-bed, state-of-the-art SCI center providing services to Veterans throughout VA’s Rocky Mountain Network, which includes Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, plus parts of five other states.
In Denver, 78 SCI Veterans who now receive inpatient hospital care at other VA facilities will be able to receive their care locally, and 984 other SCI patients will no longer have to travel elsewhere for outpatient services.
Once the new facilities are operational, 92 percent of all Colorado Veterans will live within a 60-minute drive of a VA primary care provider, and 81 percent of those Veterans will live within 120 minutes of either a VA Medical Center or a VA Health Care Center.
This year, VA expects to spend about $2.3 billion on behalf of Colorado’s 426,000 Veterans. VA operates major medical centers in Denver and Grand Junction. Additionally, it has more than a dozen community-based outpatient clinics throughout the state, plus four Vet Centers and two national cemeteries.
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