WASHINGTON — Senator Mark Warner is expected to visit the Hampton VA on Monday to meet with Director David Collins and senior leadership. The senator is expected to discuss wait times, staffing challenges, suicide prevention efforts, and providing the best quality care to our veterans.
During his visit, the senator is expected to be given a tour of the medial center.
Sen. Warner said he has been a strong advocate for improving care for veterans in the Commonwealth and has long fought to reduce wait times in Hampton Roads. In 2015, confronted with wait times that were three times the national average, Sen. Warner successfully urged the VA to send down a team of experts to try to address the problem.
In 2017, Sen. Warner successfully pushed for Congress to approve overdue medical leases on 28 major Veteran’s Affairs (VA) facilities, including one in Hampton Roads, which is projected to ease the workload at the Hampton VA Medical Center. The number of veterans cared for at the facility is only expected to grow over the next 20 years, with enrollees expected to increase by 44 percent and outpatient workload expected to increase by more than 70 percent.
Sen. Warner has pushed to get the new Hampton Roads out-patient clinic up and running by pressuring the GSA and the VA to move the project forward, pushing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to sign off on the clinic’s lease prospectus, and successfully urging the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) to bring up the prospectus for approval.