Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994 TAG: 9402170090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Speaking to more than 200 veterans and employees of a hospital still stinging from a 17-month congressional probe, Brown ranked the Salem hospital at the top of the veterans' health-care system.
"I have visited many, many facilities around this nation, and I can tell you without any hesitation, I have not visited one that is better than this facility right here," he said.
In touting the Salem hospital, Brown said he hoped to overcome the medical center's troubled history and the negative image many Americans have of the entire veterans hospital system.
VA hospitals may soon have to compete with private hospitals under a health-care reform package being pushed by President Clinton. Overhauling a poor national image will be made even tougher, Brown said, because of laws that prohibit the VA from public advertising.
His visit Wednesday - officially to take part in the hospital union's Black History Month celebration - was also one of the first steps Brown said he will take to tell people that VA hospitals can provide health care that's as good or better than what's available in the private sector.
Despite its troubled past, Brown said, the Salem hospital is no exception.
The Salem Medical Center - which serves 113,000 veterans in 25 Western Virginia counties - came under congressional scrutiny in 1992 when the bodies of three missing patients were discovered on the facility's grounds. Hospital employees complained at the time of poor patient care caused by nursing shortages, low morale and stressful working conditions.
A General Accounting Office report released last fall found that new management at the Salem Medical Center had helped improve the quality of care and staff and public confidence in the hospital, but that more needed to be done.
Brown was hardly unaware of the problems when he arrived.
"When we drove up, he said, `Where did they find the bodies?' He knows," said Alma Lee, president of the National Veterans Affairs Council and of the local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees.
Once he got out of the car, Brown wasted no time making the shift to a more positive note.
Brown wasted no time, period. He spent five minutes getting some background on the facility from Director John Presley, then shook hands with 50 hospital employees waiting to join him for lunch.
After gulping down cold cuts and salad, he took off on a whirlwind tour of the facilities, bestowing flowers and praise on those he passed in the hallways.
Brown ignored no one, not even a man who yelled "God bless you," at him from across the parking lot.
"How you doing?" he called back.
The secretary hugged hospital employees, praised their work, and fastened VA pins onto their lapels. He handed red carnations and autographed pictures of himself to ailing veterans. He even made suggestions about how to speed service at the hospital's pharmacy, where patients told him they had to wait 45 minutes or longer for prescriptions.
Fax prescriptions to the pharmacy from the hospital wards, Brown told Assistant Chief Pharmacist Bill McClung. That way, they can be ready for patients to pick up on their way out.
"It's not that we don't want to do it," McClung told him. "We don't have the staff."
They're not going to get it, either. Not with the budget tightening ordered by President Clinton, Brown said.
"We are going to have to be much more creative" in solving problems, he said. "We are up against some economic realities we are going to have to live with."
Brown said that to stay in line with a proposed $16.1 billion budget, VA hospitals would be asked to reduce administrative staff, suggesting that the Salem hospital combine its personnel office with that of the Department of Veterans Affairs regional office in Roanoke.
"We don't need two personnels that are this close together," he said.
As he walked briskly through the renal dialysis ward, Brown stopped to ask patients whether they were happy with the quality of care they received. Occasionally, he asked hospital administrators to jot down patients' names and Social Security numbers so that he could determine whether they were receiving all of the benefits to which they were entitled.
Brown, who was shot in the right arm during his service in Vietnam, was unable to properly grasp the outstretched hands of the veterans he met. That didn't stop him from giving each one a warm embrace, a kind word or a token of his appreciation.
"This is more symbolic than anything else," he told veteran Eugene McIntosh, who uses a wheelchair, as he handed him the first of a dozen carnations he would distribute before the end of his four-hour visit.
"But it comes from the heart."
by CNB