Fort Meade and Hot Springs VA hospitals on chopping block

STURGIS — The Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Hot Springs is on the chopping block again, and so is the one at Fort Meade.

In a confidential call Friday to employees, Rob McDivitt, VISN 23 director, outlined a plan to close the hospitals at Fort Meade and Hot Springs, turning them into clinics.

“These are their plans: they will turn the full-service VA hospitals in Fort Meade and Hot Springs into clinics; the Sioux Falls VA hospital will lose its emergency services; and the clinic in Wagner will completely close,” reported Gov. Kristi Noem in a prepared statement.

Official news from the VA was not announced; however, news from Noem as well as South Dakota’s Congressional delegation criticized the announcement.

In 2018, when Congress passed the MISSION Act, it required that the Veterans Affairs Administration undergo the Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR).

McDivitt said in the hour-long meetings, the VA contracted with Guidehouse Corporation which conducted a system-wide study in 2019.

It, along with internal reviews by VA staff members, looked at geography and demographics, supply, access, age and condition of the facilities, and cost data.

It found that there is a declining but aging population of veterans in the VA Black Hills network.

With 21,332 enrolled veterans, it is the third-smallest VA network in the system.

And with the aging population, the anticipated need for surgery, and other service are anticipated to decline while the need for long-term health care primary care, outpatient mental health, dental and other specialty care will increase, he said.

The majority of veterans enrolled in the Black Hills VA health care network live in the Rapid City and near Fort Meade areas.

The recommendations would be to build a new VA medical center in Rapid City. This is in addition to the $50 million community-based clinic currently under construction, and would be a completely separate from the clinic as there is not enough space. The medical center would cost, “hundreds of millions of dollars,” McDivitt said.

Some services would leave Hot Springs and Fort Meade and be transitioned to the Rapid City center.

The Hot Springs facility, which was first constricted in 1926, and the Fort Meade facility, first constructed in 1956, would transition to community outpatient centers, according to the proposal.

Noem said the proposal also includes the Sioux Falls VA hospital losing its emergency services, and the clinic in Wagner would completely close; however, that was not part of the verbal discussion. It very well could have been on a Powerpoint slide presentation employees had access to.

The full proposal will be published in the Federal Record on March 14.

Meanwhile, upgrades to both the Fort Meade and Hot Springs facilities will continue, to the tune of $34 million this year.

Once the proposal is published, it is up to the AIR Commission, nine people, who will conduct their own hearings and investigations, make its own final recommendations and send the recommendations to the president by Jan. 31, 2023.

Those nine members are nominated by the president and approved by Congress. That panel has not yet been stood up.

The president is to notify the commission and Congress if he approves or disapproves the list by Feb. 15, 2023.

If disapproved, the commission may revise the recommendations and submit a new list by March 15, 2023.

The president then has until March 30, 2023, to approve the commission’s initial or revised recommendations in their entirety and submit them to Congress, or the modernization and realignment process terminates.

If the president approves the recommendations, Congress has 45 days from the date of approval to terminate the process by enacting a joint resolution of disapproval. If Congress does not enact a joint resolution of disapproval, the VA is required to implement the recommendations.

“For nearly a decade, I’ve fought tooth and nail to defend the Hot Springs VA and the surrounding communities,” said Sen. John Thune. “I’ve stood side by side with veterans, health care professionals and community leaders as we made our case to previous administrations about the significant benefits these facilities provide to America’s veterans throughout the multi-state area they serve. That’s why I’m extremely disappointed by the Biden administration’s proposal to close these facilities. I’m frustrated, and I’m angry, and I know these communities are too. Let me put this as plainly as I can: The VA is wrong, period. This is a massive mistake, and I will do everything within my power to show the administration, by working with the Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission, why it would be in everyone’s best interest, especially South Dakota’s veterans’, to immediately change course.”

“The concerns I warned against in 2018 when I voted against the VA MISSION Act have come to fruition,” said Sen. Mike Rounds. “Veterans were told they could receive care in the community, and that’s proven not to be the case. The VA MISSION Act also included provisions to include this BRAC-style process, which we learned today will negatively impact much of rural SD. The VA MISSION Act was bad public policy then, and it’s gotten no better with age. While the provisions of this BRAC will not be released publicly until March 14th – the threat has become clear to our local veterans. As a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, I’ll fight like hell to make sure veterans in South Dakota receive the care they’ve earned. I call upon all veterans’ organizations to help us defend these services in rural South Dakota.”

“Nearly two years ago to the day, former VA Secretary Robert Wilkie came to the Hot Springs VA and announced that the VA would remain open and there would be no reduction in services for veterans,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson.

“In South Dakota, promises mean something. This is a betrayal to the Hot Springs community and its veterans. If the commission is going to move forward with reducing services, they should face the people of Hot Springs, Wagner, Fort Meade and Sioux Falls and explain why they believe these services should be scaled back. We’ve worked together to fight harmful VA decisions in the past, and we are ready do so again.”

Calls to numerous public affairs officials with the VA were not returned.