Six inpatient beds open at VA Medical Center

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - After more than four months without it, inpatient care has returned to the VA Medical Center in Fort Wayne.  The facility surprisingly shut down the service last October after saying it was improving its processes and patient care and providing training to its staff.

Last week, the hospital announced inpatient care would return before the end of February.

"Keeping the veterans in the loop, so the surprise element is what we are trying to get away from completely," said Dr. Ajay Dhawan, the facility's chief of staff.  "I think since that time, we've done a relatively good job of letting everybody know where we are."

The hospital's training came from both the regional and national VA.  Leaders thought it was better to shut down the hospital for a period of time to make big changes.

"We take our job very serious," Dhawan said.  "We understand there were some things that we needed to work on.  It's been hard on us.  It has been an experience that obviously we can learn from."

Six inpatient beds opened Wednesday.  Hospital officials will monitor the progress and make any necessary adjustments.  Over then next month, the facility hopes to re-open all 26 beds.  From there it will begin incorporating its telemetry program.

"Our hope is as we move forward, we will continue to evaluate what is working well," Dhawan said.  "If something is not working well, we can make some rapid changes and improvement."

Dennis Czarnecki, a veteran of the Vietnam War, said the past few months had been inconvenient, and hoped Fort Wayne's VA Medical Center is here to stay.

"We have veterans who come from South Bend, Ohio, Michigan, all over, to this hospital" Czarnecki said.  "You take it away and that means everybody will be forced to Indianapolis, and places like that.  That's quite a distance to go."