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

They should have spent that money to train their staff on not only medicine but etiquette as well, Money wasted I say.

The big problem is that this "art" may have gone through ten years or more in the contracting process - and it was approved a long time ago. If they cancelled the contract, they would pay the funds out anyway - so they might as well get something for it. It sucks to lose that kind of money, but we need to take a step back and look at the WHOLE picture before we dog-pile on the idea.

First I would want to know if the VA has any power over this, is a couple of times of noticed recently the Congress will go after an agency for the way they use their money but that is how Congress has apportioned it to them. So if for example Congress said the VA has so much money that they can spend on the Palo Alto hospital, I cannot fault the VA for utilizing that money to its fullest extent for the construction of that hospital, because they cannot use that money to hire doctors.

Next I work at a nonprofit hospital that has giant pieces of artwork just like this, and there’s a lot of times that these considerations are very upfront in the architecture of the design. For example did you know that straight hallways cause individuals to be tense, and stressed. If your hospital has more winding or open corridors it allows your patients and their families to be as tranquil as possible. You also allow the hospital to design units in a way that the nurse can see into each individual room that they’re responsible for from a single place, this allows them to do the paperwork that needs to be done without losing direct line of sight from their patients. On the other hand if you build a hospital that has a lot of straight lines that you can fit more rooms into it, and it will be much cheaper. In fact if you plan a hospital in giant wards where only a curtain separates each patient you can make the facility for dirt cheap.

I’m not saying that the VA did not go overboard, I am saying that I doubt the Congress is taking this into account, and I would almost guarantee that all they saw was the number and they are flipping out. I almost worry on top of all this that it will become a race to the bottom in VA facilities. Now if down the road Congress has an expert testify to having aesthetically pleasing hospital is non-therapeutic, I would totally agree with them cutting the funding on it.

I'm all for beautification, but this sounds like one of those $400 hammers.

When it comes to ANY hospital system (not just the VA) my asshole starts to pucker whenever I start to hear about anything that makes me believe that people are making crazy profits from the sickness and death of other people.

Just seems morally wrong to me... profiting from your fellow man's misfortune.

From CATO
"The federal government has hundreds of agencies and
thousands of programs, and it now spends almost $4
trillion a year. The government has grown too large to
manage efficiently. Agencies have little incentive to
control costs or improve quality, and Congress does a poor
job of overseeing the executive branch to ensure good
performance. As a result, many federal agencies suffer
from wasteful spending practices."
"Cost overruns have plagued hospital construction by
the Department of Veterans Affairs.7 A hospital currently
being built in Orlando has more than doubled in cost from
$254 million to $616 million. And a hospital being built
near Denver has quintupled in cost from $328 million to
$1.7 billion."

I would wish that they spent more actually helping vets, especially those with PTSD.

Hell no! This is a perfect example of FWA.

That is so redicoulous, I can't even wrap my head around it. I guess it shows where their priorities lie.

Totally unnecessary, but I haven't read the building contract either. Some builders factor that fu-fu fuffy stuff in with the bids. For example, did you know that when they added family housing at Fort Campbell (cicra 2001-ish) that the lowest bid came in that INCLUDED a community pool? He won the contract, and was told not to put the pool in. It did not get reduced from the total price, the Army just said not to install it. They didn't want other housing areas to get pissy. It made my head want to explode because our housing still had lead paint and we had to sign a waiver and weren't allowed to put a single nail into the wall. Some government contracts are incredible.

I kinda like the morse code mural.