The vast majority of buildings still in
use at the VA Medical Center in Northport, NY were built in 1928-1931. There
were two other major medical/psychiatric facilities here on Long Island that
were built around the same time with the same architecture that are now
partially, or completely, torn down. These facilities, Pilgrim State Hospital (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim_Psychiatric_Center) and the even older Kings Park Mental
Institution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_Park_Psychiatric_Center), were torn down due to their age,
structural integrity, and environmental hazards such as asbestos, lead, and
black mold. The VA Medical Center in Northport, NY, has exactly the same age,
structural integrity, and environmental hazards in 95% of its buildings. So,
what’s the problem, here? Why can’t the Federal Government find enough of our
tax dollars to remedy the situation? This Medical Center needs to be completely
razed and a new, modern Facility built in its place.
The VA Medical Center is on Federal property, nestled in the
bucolic woods of Northport, NY, and is approximately 600 acres in size. There
is more than enough available acreage to first construct a new medical
facility, and then tear down the old one.
With a new, multi-story building of about 8-10 stories and
two to four connected outbuildings, the Veteran community on Long Island will
be fully and properly served. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has more
than enough money to get this done. If you doubt they have the funding, simply
check around the Nation and look at the facilities they have constructed
elsewhere in the past twenty years. One of the problems in Northport seems to
the Center’s Executive Director. He has never entertained the idea of such a
capital improvement, because he “likes” the old architecture. Meanwhile, “Rome
is burning” while he sits in his executive suite fiddling (as a famous Roman
did centuries ago).
There are approximately 130,000 to 150,000 Veterans in
Nassau and Suffolk Counties here in New York (http://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/other/veterans_11_2015.pdf.) Some accounts claim lesser numbers, but not by much. At
last check, it is my understanding that only a maximum of 34,000 - 28,000
Veterans (depending on who you ask) are registered at this Facility. Where are
the rest of the 100,000+ Veterans on Long Island getting their
health care, and why aren’t they subscribing to the VA Medical Center? One
visit through these “hallowed halls” will answer that question. It takes a
Veteran with a high degree of intestinal fortitude to drive by the Guard Shack
and into this medical campus seeking medical care. The very first thing they
see are two five-story buildings ringed with chain-link fencing, roofs that
look like Swiss cheese, and have the appearance of buildings about to fall down
on their own. These two particular buildings have been left to decay for almost
ten years, while the string of reasons and excuses of why they aren’t being
torn down flow from the Director’s office. Again, what’s the problem here? Is
there some hidden agenda that is benefiting those at the top? Appearance and
perception is everything! Suffice it to say the Veteran in/out patients don’t
want to “drink the Kool-Aide” anymore; they want action so that the medical and
mental health care they were promised gets delivered properly.
The buildings that must come down:
#1 & #2 the
two originals with fencing around them, already condemned
#5 Auditorium
#6 Environmental
Services (kind of ironic, eh?), Chaplains, Neurology, Nutrition, Psychiatry, Psychology, Recreational Therapy
#7 Department
offices: Orthopedics, Podiatry, Infectious Control, Employee Education
#9 Community
Relations, Mail Room, Veterans Service Org.’s (mainly DAV), Volunteer Services
#10 Management
offices: Business, EEO, Engineering, Executive
#11 Beacon
House Domiciliary
#17,18,37, Research,
affiliated with Stony Brook
61, 62 State
University Medical School
#63 Psychology,
Vocational Rehab.
#64 Psychology
Clinic, Substance Abuse
#65 PTSD,
Telehealth, Dual Diagnosis (Major
new leak and decomposition involving
the second story concrete slab floor. It has been open and visible for four weeks with no remediation in sight.) (The
plaster outer walls have been exploding with
black mold “cancers” for decades.)
#92 Nursing
Home (original)
#36 Maintenance
& Engineering (out buildings)
#88 Pool
& Gymnasium, closed for repairs, opened, closed for repairs, opened, still cracked and leaking
* There are lesser used and smaller buildings of the same
era that need to come down also (approx. 6
buildings)
**There are many other offices and clinics in these
buildings; I am listing the
major ones.
Reference article below.
This
building is only forty-four years old and, piece by piece,
the mechanical
infrastructure is failing; the Operating Suites’
climate control air ducting,
the “cooling tower” on the roof,
and the air conditioning for the basement
Radiology and Nuclear
Medicine departments. What’s next?
The two buildings on the bottom of
the the picture to the left are
condemned and fenced off.
The map on the right shows the total acreage (in red) and
the available acreage for buildings and infrastructure (in darker red).
This map of
the Northport VAMC does not
show all the buildings on the campus.
Saturday,
August 6, 2016, © wethepeeps1.com
