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SEN. PATTY MURRAY SAYS SEATTLE-AREA VA FACILITIES

ARE SHAPING UP -- VA is making progress on minimizing

suicide risks at psychiatric wards.

 

 

For background on the problems at Seattle-area VA hospitals, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/
sessearch.php?q=seattle+acc
reditation&op=and

Story here... http://seattlepi.nwsource
.com/local/6420AP_WA_
VA_Hospital.html

Story below:

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Sen. Murray: Seattle, Tacoma VA hospitals shaping up

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals are making progress on minimizing suicide risks at psychiatric wards in Seattle and Tacoma, Sen. Patty Murray says.

Murray, D-Wash., toured the Seattle VA hospital on Monday, about two months after flying from Washington, D.C., to her home state to personally check on reports that hospital conditions posed a danger to some patients' lives.

She said VA officials assured her work was under way to remove shower heads, handrails and other fixtures that hospital standards inspectors had cited as suicide dangers.

Robin Cook, the quality improvement director for VA Puget Sound Health Care System, said a psych ward at the American Lake hospital in the Tacoma area had been closed to make way for the most serious renovations.

The repair team is scheduled to move to Seattle next for similar fixes, Cook said.

Murray, a senior member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, also said the attitude of VA officials had improved since her last visit in June.

"I think we all know this is not the end of the road," Murray said. "They still have a lot of the infrastructure work to do at the VA, but ... they're making progress."

Conditions at the VA psych wards in Seattle and Tacoma first came to Murray's attention after the Joint Commission, a Chicago-based hospital standards group, found in May that psych ward conditions at the hospitals posed an "immediate threat to life."

In a statement, the VA Puget Sound Health Care System said it was now back on track for accreditation from the Joint Commission.

Officials from the Joint Commission did not immediately return messages seeking comment after business hours.

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Larry Scott  --