VA Secretary commends San Diego VA hospital as top 5 in the nation during visit

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- The U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins made a stop in San Diego on Tuesday to visit the VA Hospital in La Jolla and meet with veterans, staff and students of University of San Diego. He said since being sworn into this position in February, he’s visited about 100 VA facilities in 24 states, and said San Diego consistently ranks as one of the best in the nation.

“One of the reasons I'm out here today is because this is one of the best in our system, this is one of the top 5 across our whole platform,” he added, compared to the 170 facilities in the nation’s largest healthcare network. “This is one we can point to and say this is one that’s doing it right, this is one that’s getting a lot done.”

The VA San Diego Healthcare System essentially getting the stamp of approval from Collins. He visited with staff and patients, and passed out several Secretary coins to some of the staff. This isn’t his first time in San Diego. He said more than 30 years ago he started his military career here. 

After being sworn in, Collins led a workforce reduction that resulted in about 30,000 fewer positions, but he is disputing any claims that this weakened the VA.

“Nobody’s been laid off and nobody’s been fired, our reduction came from those who took voluntary retirement,” Collins added, getting emotional at one point talking about his daughter and saying that he does not plan to cut any of the summer/winter games for disabled veterans.

“I’m the father of a 33-year-old spina bifida child, she’s never walked. I’ve had to deal with her being in a wheelchair. We cried when she pushed that wheelchair for the first time, because that was her first step. For any of our disabled veterans who are getting the opportunity to do clinics like that, whether it be winter, summer, wheelchair games, warrior games, we’re going to be there to support that. I'm not going to let anyone take that back, because I see what the value of it is,” Collins said.

Collins said in his time in office so far he has cut the backlog of disability claims, helped wait times and maintains a focus on veteran care, but said there is still more work that needs to be done.

“I’ve tasked all of our VA to say, what are we doing that we shouldn’t be doing, what has been put in for some reason before that we can now lose so that we have a cleaner line of communication, and a cleaner line of work so we can get our veterans the help that they need,” Collins said. Referring to the San Diego location, "this is a great facility .. this one is actually one that’s very good.”

“It was a huge surprise and it’s a very special honor because those aren’t given out very frequently,” Cindy Abair, the associate medical center director said. She was one of the few employees who received the Secretary’s coin.

“It’s a special honor for him to come to the area, because we spent some time with him this morning and he was talking to us about the initiatives and some of his goals about what he wants to do and changes that he wants to make for the benefit of the organization,” Abair added.

The Secretary was also scheduled to talk with veteran students at University of San Diego on Tuesday afternoon.