FAYETTEVILLE -- The emergency department at Fayetteville's VA Medical Center is still closed. It's been six months since the department shut its doors, changing the facility into an urgent care center.

Last September, the VA Medical Center announced it would close its emergency room, instead converting it into an urgent care center, open 12 hours a day. At the time, administrators said they made the change due to "staffing issues." For six months veterans have been dealing with this transition.

"There are emergencies that occur after 8:00, and they are veteran specific emergencies, so after 8:00, there is no one that can handle those specific problems. So they have to wait until the following morning, and sometimes it can be too late,” said Andrew Chiapetta, Veterans Empowering Veterans executive director.

Administrators would not offer an on-camera interview or comment on the current situation at their center. The only thing they did tell say was "We are not re-opening the emergency department until it is safe to open," but no other details were provided.

Wait times at the facility have also been been of concern. A national audit found the Fayetteville VA had the second worst wait time for new patients in the country.

"If you are sick, you're injured, you're in pain, which was my case, to call up a doctor and say you know 'I have something wrong,' well it will be 60 days before we can even take a look at you and examine you. That is unacceptable in any healthcare system,” said John Byrnes, Concerned Veterans for America, local director.

The vets say, after serving and sacrificing, the treatment they're currently receiving doesn't feel like a thank you.

"Everybody that has served has served selflessly, and when you go to a facility that deals specifically with veterans, you would think they would take that little extra bit of effort to accommodate you as quickly and accurately as possible,” said Chiapetta.

A spokesman for Cape Fear Valley Medical Center says they have seen an increase in the number of patients in their emergency department, but with the amount of flu cases, they are not sure if this is directly related to the VA's decision to close their emergency department.

 

Fayetteville VA Medical Center Director Elizabeth Goolsby issued this statement in response to our story:

 

As head of the Fayetteville Medical Center, I’m compelled to respond to your recent piece entitled, “VA Medical Center Remains Closed.”

Granted, it has been nearly six months since we converted our emergency department into an urgent care center. Fayetteville VAMC, our immediate higher headquarters VA Mid-Atlantic Healthcare Network, VA Central Office and the contractors who will operate the ED when we return to ED status – we’re are all working diligently to make that happen as soon as possible.  We are as eager as area Veterans are to have a full-service ED here again.  We want that return to be safe and sustainable, thus we are proceeding with caution and ask for just a little more patience.

There is little else in this piece that we can agree with.  We made the conversion to an Urgent Care Center to ensure safety and well-being of the Veterans who place their care in our hands and we take exception to anything that implies otherwise.  We have gone to great pains to spread the word about our conversion, the services available and our UCC hours of operation.

And while we are quite proud of our special affinity for taking care of Veterans -- after all nearly one-half of the Medical Center staff are themselves Veterans -- Mr. Chiapetta’s talk of ‘veteran specific emergencies’ that occur after 8 p.m. that can’t wait until the following morning, can’t go unchallenged.  We can’t stress any more emphatically our instructions that any Veteran receiving care at the Fayetteville VA Medical experiencing a medical emergency should call 9-1-1 and be taken to the closest community hospital.

Then, there’s a discussion about wait times at the facility.  Granted new patients are waiting longer to see a provider here than other locations across the country.  However, those wait times are on par with wait times for new patients at VA facilities with similar growth, space constraints, volume of patients being seen, and proximity to multiple military installations, as is our case.  We have embraced this challenge and embarked on construction, leasing, recruiting, and hiring initiatives along with best practices and innovation to continue to meet demand while simultaneously reducing wait times.  I’m pleased to say we’re making considerable progress and disappointed to see Mr. Byrnes reference to waiting 60 days before anyone even looks at a sick or injured Veteran presented without challenge, support or context. The average wait time to a primary appointment is 28 days.

This affront is made even more egregious by Mr. Chiapetta's unsupported implication that we at the Fayetteville VA don’t "take that little extra bit of effort to accommodate you (Veterans) as quickly and accurately as possible.”

I assure your viewers that we at the Fayetteville VA routinely expend the extra effort to accommodate the Veterans we serve, just as they expended the extra effort to serve our country. 

Sincerely,

ELIZABETH GOOLSBY

Director, Fayetteville VA Medical Center