Since a water quality issue revealed in March at the VA Health Care Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, has yet to be corrected, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) submitted a letter on Monday to Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald discussing his concerns on the failure and urging rapid action to correct it.
Back on March 19, 2015, the Wilmington Health Care Clinic (HCC), a VA facility, issued a water quality complaint to the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority. The utility ran a test on the water inside the clinic, which revealed that an interior plumbing problem existed and advised the HCC to stop using the water on March 23. The efforts to correct the water quality problems are now in their third month, with no progress.
“While VA says that it is referring patients requiring urgent care procedures to community providers at VA expense,” Burr said, “I have heard from concerned veterans who tell me VA is not fully honoring its commitment to refer urgent care patients to community providers and that patients are, in some cases, being required to travel beyond forty miles to receive care at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center.”
To ensure quick corrective action, Senator Burr requested that a briefing on his concerns be held next month.
“I understand that Fayetteville’s forty mile radius and Wilmington’s overlap to some extent, but if this “overlap” is part of the reasoning for having veterans travel further for care which is available locally, it defies common sense and may also defy good medical sense,” Burr said.