Area head comments on push for full VA hospital

HARLINGEN — The new director of the region’s Veterans Affairs health care system said he is not fighting the push for a full VA hospital here, but he said he couldn’t join the campaign to create a hospital.

“I work for the executive branch. … I can’t lobby your congressman; I’ll go to jail,” said Lawrence A. Biro, director of the VA Texas Valley Coastal Bend Health Care System.

“I cannot lobby Congress. That’s where it is — it’s essentially in Washington. There’s nothing in it for me to oppose you. That’s not my job. I’m here to listen to you.”

Biro met with local veterans here this past week to discuss efforts to upgrade medical facilities in the region.

Answering questions about measures in Congress such as a House amendment proposed by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Biro said the DVA would abide by any direction coming from Washington.

“If it’s in a committee report … if it has something for us to do, we will get those directions. That’s how that works,” he said. “It trickles down. It’s just like the Army or the Navy … it trickles down.”

Biro, whose region stretches from Corpus Christi to Brownsville to Laredo, updated the veterans on their push for a full DVA hospital.

“That’s what you want to talk about, inpatient beds,” Biro said. “What I learned from last time is that any decision like that, in strategic planning, will come from the secretary,” he said, referring to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki.

“We’re not the people that do that,” Biro said. “ I meet with him roughly every six months. Of that time he’s allocated to me, we spend about a half-hour talking about the Valley. He’s very interested in the Valley.”

Shinseki is gathering a lot of information about the situation in the Valley, Biro said. “That’s where we’re at. We’re waiting on him for a decision.”

Shinseki does read letters and emails sent to the DVA by Rio Grande Valley veterans, and he is very thorough, Biro said.

Arturo Treto Garza, of America’s Last Patrol, said he was glad that Biro clarified his position.

“Some of us didn’t understand it,” he said.

“We’ve been at it for a long time and we wanted to be as forceful as we can,” he said of the campaign, which has included letter writing, petitions, marches and other efforts to call attention to the need for a hospital.

“It’s been a long five years for us,” Treto Garza said. “Don’t get us wrong, we are very appreciative of all the new benefits we have.”

DVA spokesman Froy Garza said Friday there are still some medical/surgical procedures that require veterans to travel to Audie Murphy Memorial DVA Hospital in San Antonio.

But contracts with Valley hospitals give DVA officials the flexibility to authorize some of those procedures to be done locally if that’s what the veteran requests, he said.

Ruben M. Cantu, a member of the Harlingen Veterans Advisory Board, said Valley veterans, young veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and retirees from northern states badly need a VA hospital.

“We have a lot of veterans down here that are frustrated, running out of time. They’re literally dying,” he said. “I know we have a long way to go, but we need to continue coming together and meeting.”