VALLEY VETS ARE SHORTCHANGED AGAIN.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

When push comes to shove inside the Veterans Administration, you can always count on one thing these days -- our local vets at Sepulveda VA will be the ones getting pushed and shoved the hardest.

The latest bad news hit the North Hills facility last week. From now on, the thousands of veterans receiving outpatient health care at Sepulveda -- from the San Fernando Valley all the way up to Bakersfield and Santa Barbara -- will have to go over the hill to the West Los Angeles VA for an MRI or CAT scan.

``Because of the aging equipment (at Sepulveda), the quality of scans was significantly impaired,'' said Dr. Dean Norman, chief of staff for the Greater Los Angeles VA Health Care System.

That must be reassuring to the 697 vets who had MRIs and CAT scans at Sepulveda in the first six months of this year.

Now why, you may ask, didn't the VA just replace the old equipment instead of making hundreds of aging vets with medical problems fight the 405 Freeway logjam over the hill?

Can you spell M-O-N-E-Y?

It would have cost about $4 million for new machines, plus technical staff costs, Norman said.

Now, we all know the VA is strapped for money, even though Congress keeps increasing its budget every year. So where's the money going? Not to outpatient health care for veterans at Sepulveda.

``I just heard about this today and I'm more than a little upset,'' Rep. Brad Sherman said Thursday. ``Charles Dorman (director of VA facilities in Los Angeles) apologized for not notifying us earlier, but that doesn't satisfy me.''

You may remember Dorman from previous columns. He's the guy who tried to help cut the VA's deficit by axing the free lunches offered to volunteers who worked four hours a day helping ailing vets.

After a little pressure, Dorman finally relented and let the volunteers continue to have their free lunches and eat them, too -- but only if they put in six hours of work for free a day, instead of four.

Can you spell C-H-E-A-P?

``Dorman told me they replaced the existing MRI machine at West L.A. with a new one, and I asked why they didn't bring the old one over to Sepulveda if it was still working,'' Sherman said. ``I was told the old machine was disposed of.''

It seems like a lot of things are being disposed of at Sepulveda these days -- at the expense of previous promises.

``I remember at the time of the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, the secretary of Veterans Affairs telling me not to worry,'' said Rep. Howard Berman.

``They were going to have to close the hospital at Sepulveda, but he assured me they would continue to give the highest quality of outpatient services.

``I would think MRIs and CAT scans are a fundamental part of any quality outpatient service.''

Both Berman and Sherman -- strong advocates for veterans -- promise to fight to get the machines back to Sepulveda.

It's a long shot, but not impossible, said Norman, who fielded questions for Dorman about the latest cutbacks at Sepulveda.

``We will review everything, including the possibility of replacing it in the future, but the quality of the old equipment was unacceptable,'' he said.

``We won't give poor-quality care to our patients.''

To his credit, Norman is trying to make the transition as easy as possible for local vets, including providing scheduled transportation from North Hills to West L.A.

``We've expanded the hours (for MRIs and CAT scans) to evenings and Saturdays to minimize the inconvenience for Valley patients,'' he said.

``My father drives to West Los Angeles from the Valley for some of his care, so I know the hardship.

``But the good news is, we're maintaining specialty services, including increasing our ability to monitor frail vets in their homes by computer so they don't have to come into the VA for checkups.''

Nice, but not enough, say veterans like Pasqual Ramirez of Northridge.

``You've got veterans already driving to the Valley all the way from Bakersfield, Palmdale, Lancaster, and Ventura and Santa Barbara counties,'' he said.

``Now the VA wants them to travel through that mess known as the 101 and 405 freeways, too?

``I think it's unconscionable treatment for the men and women who defended and continue to defend our rights and freedoms,'' Ramirez said.

Can you spell D-A-M-N R-I-G-H-T?

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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