Our Time Has Come

It began in December, 2011....the battle of our community and our veterans to save our VA hospital from being cut by the VA administration in Washington. This week of June, 2014 we face off with the EIS (Environmental Impact Study) in an effort, both written and verbal, to challenge the proposed closure of not only the largest employer of our area, but a facility long-established as one of the foremost treatment centers in our country for veterans with PTSD and other emotional issues common to veterans, located in a peaceful environment conducive to long-term recovery. Our town of Hot Springs is a haven for many veterans who, after treatment in our Domiciliary, choose to abandon the cities and remain here as contributing members of our society.

For any readers who challenge my previous blog, I invite them to check out for themselves outside surveys done for accreditation on our hospital. One is JACHO and the other is CARF. Both give glowing reviews to our VA. In September, 2012, our Black Hills Health Care System was "awarded full accreditation by CARF for its residential and outpatient programs related to homelessness and employment services, addiction treatment and PTSD programming. This is the fifth time Mental Health services has been awarded CARF certification for Residential Programming." It continues, "Not only did these programs pass the survey with no noted deficiencies, several best practices were noted." Later, "The services, personnel and documentation reviewed clearly indicated an established pattern of practice excellence and programs of the highest quality."

All of this was documented in a survey taken many years into the numerous cuts in services made to our VA. I have written all of this is my book Reveille in Hot Springs. The book is available on Amazon for any interested enough in our veterans and their care. Readers can listen to our veterans by reading their testimonies. If the VA administration had listened to the voices of their veterans, they would not be in the mess they are in at the present time. Listening to only the upper management in any industry only leads to self-serving in the long run. All veterans need to care about the needs of all veterans. Some can use medical treatment available at any hospital. Others need a rural VA.

Our community listened to the needs of its veterans who use and need this VA. After listening to veterans for over two years, we believe them. We also heard the lies of management. Perhaps if our country and our representatives had listened to veterans years ago who need the services that only a VA facility is able to provide for many who served, our VA would be thriving and would have the personnel to treat all the homeless and emotionally disabled veterans who show up at its front door.

This week we appear before the EIS. They will present their findings to the VA administration in Washington. The head of the VA will consider their study, the proposal for closure by the VA and the proposal by the veterans and citizens of Hot Springs. What will be the results? Will they favor management or the wishes of the veterans who have special needs best met in VA facilities such as our serene sandstone Dom on the top of the hill in the midst of the healing Black Hills of South Dakota?