Possible reprieve for VA nursing home in Livermore Possible reprieve for VA nursing home in Livermore (September 23, 2005)

Future may see new facility and clinic on current campus
by Carol Bogart

Arrive early for a meeting being held in the dining room at the nursing home adjacent to the VA hospital in Livermore and you'll see a man in a pickup scattering feed for a flock of grateful, nearly-tame wild turkeys. Leave late, and you'll find a herd of 15 deer lounging on the lawn.

Josephine Moffatt, a World War II flight nurse with Gen. Patton, calls the setting, "a wonderful, peaceful, quiet place to get your health back." Moffatt is blind and confined to a wheelchair. Her roommate at the nursing home, a former flight nurse, too, provides play by play on the wildlife tableau unfolding outside their window.

Wednesday of last week marked the second in a series of "stakeholder" meetings sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs that will result in a recommendation to VA Secretary R. James "Jim" Nicholson as to where to house Livermore-area aging and infirm veterans once the existing home has been demolished.

Last week, a panel convened by the VA considered five options. One was renovation of the existing 23-year-old structure. At the first meeting in May, many who testified literally begged the panel to "just leave (the existing home) alone."

Partway into last week's meeting, Rep. Richard Pombo (R-11th District) appeared via a live television feed, spoke briefly, and, although he said he'd been given a copy of the options, expressed no opinion as to which he favored. Shortly after, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-10th District) also appeared via TV. Veterans present erupted in hoots, whistles and cheers when Tauscher called the meetings "a precipitous waste of our time." She said no one could give her cost estimates for construction of a new nursing home, but said her own projection was $8-9 million. There's no guarantee, she said, that Congress would approve the funding. Tauscher firmly supports upgrading the present nursing home, but that option - even though Perry identified it as the least expensive and the "sentimental favorite" - is no longer on the table.

It was clear from the outset of Wednesday's meeting that panel members were convinced Nicholson would reject a recommendation to further study that option. It didn't "conform" to and wouldn't "be compliant" with then-VA Secretary Anthony Principi's decision last year that requires construction of a new nursing home - its location to be determined by such factors as ease of access.

In a surprise development at the conclusion of Wednesday's meeting, panel member Dr. Ellen Shibata proposed an option not previously considered. She recommended for further study an option that would build - somewhere on the current campus - both a new 120 bed nursing home and a "co-located" clinic. She said that, as a clinician, she considers such "co-location" essential for optimum care. By a vote of 3-2, the panel approved forwarding that option to the Secretary for his consideration. The option is one of several being sent to Nicholson that the panel is recommending for further study. The others call for building a new nursing home elsewhere, possibly the Central Valley.

Panel chairman Alan Perry repeatedly pointed out that Nicholson is under no obligation to accept the panel's recommendations. He also pointed out that no construction will begin until 2012. Dr. Shibata noted that when the existing nursing home is torn down, whatever acreage is freed up for development could result in "compatible re-use" - an assisted living complex, for example, with a certain number of units set aside for veterans or a school for nurses. Not necessarily, she said, would development have to be a "hospitality destination" like a retreat-type spa, one of several ideas planners are considering.

Perry again assured assembled veterans that no veteran will have to move until there's a new home to go to.

He and others said it was their understanding any proceeds from redevelopment would be funneled back into health services for veterans, such as, suggested one panel member, the money necessary to build both a nursing home and clinic in the current rural setting.

Veteran Rose Wilson has called that setting "home" for the past four years. She recounts a fall a year ago that fractured her hip. Now, she said, she's walking. "The atmosphere here had a lot to do with it," she relates. "You're feeling down and you go outside and see the deer a-runnin' and a-jumpin' - it lifts you up. There's nothing like nature to lift you up. I think it would be very hard to equal the life here." Pleasanton veteran and nursing home resident Richard Irby and his wife, Jeanette, now in their 80s, suspect they'll no longer be around by the time a new home is completed. But both hope retired veterans of tomorrow don't lose a place so many believe heals bodies, minds and spirits.
Where oh where will the nursing home go

Most who testified Wednesday on behalf of veterans in the Central Valley said they want a new home built in Stockton or Modesto, but some said they don't want the residents of the current home to lose their beloved location.

Residents of the home, as many as half or more from the Central Valley, seem united in their desire to stay put. Renovating the existing home was unanimously rejected by the panel. The majority also rejected building a new stand-alone nursing home on the existing campus.

Options the panel recommended for further study - any of which the Secretary may reject - are:

* "co-locate" a nursing home with a clinic in the East Bay or the North Central Valley. A reading of the 2004 decision, however, calls for the clinic to be moved to an area in which there are more veterans.

* construct a standalone nursing home somewhere other than the current campus, but without a clinic. Panel member Dr. Ellen Shibata voted no, in keeping with her belief that, whatever is built should optimize what she called a "continuum of care."

* build a new nursing home and adjacent clinic on the current Livermore campus

* split the current 120-bed nursing home, building one in Alameda County and one in the Central Valley. When panel member Bev Finley, once a Modesto mayoral candidate, was asked if she meant leave 60 beds here and move 60 beds to the Central Valley - before she could answer, several nursing home residents present spontaneously shouted, "No!" For some, their fellow residents are the only family they have, explains Pleasanton's Jeanette Irby. Irby drives the 15 minutes to Livermore every day to see her husband, Richard. Many other residents, she said, never have a visitor.

If the proposal to build both a new nursing home and a new clinic on the existing parcel ultimately flies, it's unknown whether the VA will try to build on a parcel of the campus designated Wednesday as "Parcel One." Under questioning from both Dr. Shibata and panel chairman Alan Perry, planners acknowledged that Parcel One incorporates an "undocumented landfill." In it, they said, is rumored to be an old hospital that was bulldozed on site and buried. Planners said contaminants of an unknown nature are likely present - and that no soil testing is planned. They said a visual inspection revealed no obvious pollution. VA spokesperson Kerri Childress adds that, to date, there has been no testing to determine if contaminants are leaching into groundwater. Identified as "Parcel Four" is the site where the present nursing home is located. Perry said building a new nursing on Parcel Four would "limit re-use potential" because the nursing home would remain "in the center" of acreage deemed most desirable for redevelopment. Planners said they could "re-parcelize" the property to create "a suitable parcel" big enough for both a nursing home and clinic on the current campus - assuming the Secretary doesn't nix the option altogether.

In addition to Perry, who is director of the VA Central California Health Care System based in Fresno, Modesto's Finley and Dr. Shibata, who manages four divisions of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System - Livermore, Modesto, Stockton and Sonora, the panel includes Livermore businessman and one-time City Council member Thomas Vargas who is also Chairman of the Board at ValleyCare Health System in Pleasanton, and local veteran's service organization representative Ed Schoonover - an active volunteer at the Livermore VA facility. Shibata, Vargas and Schoonover voted yes on Shibata's keep-it-on-the-current-campus nursing home-and-clinic-option. Not present was panel member Assemblyman Guy Houston R-15th, formerly of Livermore, who also missed the first meeting. Childress said the meetings conflicted with Houston's schedule.
Speaking your piece

The third of four planned stakeholders' meetings is tentatively scheduled for late November or early December. To e-mail comments to the VA, visit www.va.gov/cares/LocationSite/Site13.asp?VASite=13. Written comments are given equal weight with oral testimony.

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