Chairman Takano Delivers Opening Remarks at Full Committee Hearing on Va's Fourth Mission
Hearing
Today, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chairman Mark Takano (D-Calif.) delivered remarks at the full Committee hearing examining the role of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chairman Takano's remarks as prepared:
Since March 2020, leaders from VA's Veterans Health Administration and Office of Emergency Management have had to continuously develop and redevelop the department's capacity to respond to the most significant global public health emergency in generations.
In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, VHA began to see requests from the states like New York and New Jersey to admit civilian patients to VA hospitals.
VA had to rapidly find ways to simultaneously sustain its own capacity to provide care to veterans, prevent spread of the virus among its workforce, and provide critical care to civilians--all without being able to fully estimate the scale of the danger of this new virus, or the resources the system would need to fight it.
The last 33 months have tested VHA and other federal health partners in ways they have never been tested before. With a majority elderly patient population, an aged infrastructure, an overworked and underpaid workforce, and an obligation to support the federal disaster response, VHA has delivered the performance of its lifetime.
We have seen dozens of private healthcare systems effectively buckle or shrink under the strain of public health emergencies and natural disasters, workforce shortages, and infrastructure challenges.
VHA has largely been able to avoid this, continuing to deliver the highest quality care to veterans.
That alone would have been an accomplishment. But VHA also fulfilled its role as the backstop to the American healthcare system, providing assistance to nearly every state and territory and dozens of tribal nations.
More than 6,000 VHA employees volunteered to deploy to assist civilian or tribal health systems since March of 2020.
Because of its integrated nature, VHA's staff and supplies can move at a moment's notice to assist in a crisis across the country.
But the strain of the pandemic has impacted all partners of the National Disaster Medical System.
And the urgency of establishing interagency relationships and making structural change to how VHA serves its humanitarian function has lessened as life gets closer to normal.
Today we will discuss three general themes:
One: What went right, and what went wrong in that first year?
Second, what longer term problems--be they the structure of the Fourth Mission in VA, or interagency partnerships across health systems--were put on the list of "things we need to address when there's time?" And is now that time?
And third, what does VHA itself--and VHA as a partner in the National Response Framework--still have left to do to prepare and respond to the next public health emergency?
We are incredibly lucky to have with us today two of the most knowledgeable authorities on managing a health system in a public health crisis--Dr. Richard Stone, former Executive in Charge of the Veterans Health Administration; and Dr. Paul Kim, the former Executive Director of VHA's Office of Emergency Management.
On our second panel we have a number of current public servants, several of whom were also at VHA and IHS throughout the pandemic.
Ms. Roselyn Tso is the Director of the Indian Health Service.
Dr. Steven Lieberman is the VHA's Deputy Under Secretary for Health.
Ms. Tammy Czarnecki is VHA's Deputy Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Operations.
Dr. Jane Kim is VHA's Executive Director for Preventative Medicine
And Ms. Carla Boyce is VA's Executive Director for the Office of Operations, Security and Preparedness.
I'd like to note that both FEMA and HHS were invited to participate in today's hearing. Both declined. Given the role they played in the pandemic, we are extremely disappointed they didn't want to be a part of today's discussion.
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