VA spent $6.3 million on sculptures and fountains for their hospitals. Should they have?

A lot of people want to discount the value of art, but have you ever been to an austere hospital? They're terrifying. Private hospitals spend MUCH more than that for just one building. Hell, the hospital I work at spent more than that by a long shot. Why? The mental and emotional side of things is extraordinarily important.

Hospitals are stressful. You don't go to them for fun. Art makes it less scary, more interesting and a more pleasant experience. Environment has a significant impact on healing and art is an important part of the human experience, even though some like to pretend it's a froo-froo waste of time and money.

I think it's lovely. I could sit there and wait six months for an appointment.

COL Mikel J. Burroughs, the answer is NO. I'll bet there are many excellent veteran artists that would be glad to have their art displayed for the materials and transport costs alone.

Working for the VA it drives me up the wall seeing these things occur. I have seen where a skylight ($40K) was installed. However I found out that is took them several yrs to get the contracts etc to get it installed.

Here's an idea: display military paraphernalia in the hospitals. I'm talking about coin displays, flags (unit, etc), flight suits, etc.

Veterans would much rather see this than austere white walls.

IF the money was paid to veterans to create veteran art to support veterans, then I support this expenditure. If not, it was a huge waste of money.

No that 6.3 million dollars could have been spent on quality care for Veterans or Veterans Benefits.  Just a waste of money without any consequences for an object that will not improve enhance the quality of life for any Veteran.  Somebody should be fired for approving 6.3 million dollars for a project of this nature.

Did the money actually come out of the VA Budget or did the money come in from a grant or something similar? The reason I ask this is, it would make a big difference in my mind if it was out of the VA budget. Often times, the media does not know where the money comes from. They just see that money was spent. For example, they had a solar project at our VA medical center. They got a lot of backlash about it from the media. HOWEVER, the money was a federal grant specifically for the solar project and never came out of VA budget.

I just enjoy frivolous spending at the expense of the Veterans and Taxpayers.. It gives me the warm fuzzies. lol

Of course they should have......even if they had the best world class care in the world folks would complain if the facilities looked like crap.......it's just in our nature as human beings. Having worked in many medical facilities I will tell you if that if the facility is nice and clean with pretty stuff around the patients are happier....even if their care is sub-par.....hell if you add free internet you'd probably cut complaints down by half again. The VA is in a no win situation right now no matter what they spend on money on everyone is going to tear them to pieces....but come on let's be real if you had to go get your exam in a double wide trailer you'd be complaining....we expect a certain level of care and with the level of care comes an expectation of modern facilities with all the trimmings......hell right after 9-11 the biggest complaint we had to deal with was "How come the Starbucks kiosk is closed".....yes it's a lot of money but we have it in our sights only because we are looking for something to shoot at not because it's a viable target.

Could and should are dangerous questions, not the least when speaking about the VA. IF I had to guess, these projects were approved in September. They found they had money left that year and HAD to spend it so they could ask for more money the next year. Just another example of a big problem.