Volunteers with a hospice group that’s been visiting sick and dying veterans for 21 years and at least two Veteran Services Organizations (VSOs) have been evicted from their offices at the West Los Angeles VA medical campus.
“Who is going to sit at their bedsides to provide comfort and pay respects?’ asked The Twilight Brigade founder and Marine veteran Dannion Brinkley.
The Twilight Brigade is one of the largest end-of-life care communities operating as an independent agency within VA hospitals and hospice care facilities across the country, Brinkley explained.
“The greatness of a country is how it takes care of its veterans,” he said. “I see a system trying to eliminate an observer that is not under their thumb.”
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The VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System notified Twilight Brigade and 11 other groups that they can no longer have offices or hold meetings on the campus late last year.
“I think its insanity,” Brinkley said. “We’ve spent 21 years at the site providing end-of-life care for veterans.”
Jessica Baxter, director of the Los Angeles Regional Public Affairs Office, said that Twilight Brigade originally came onto the complex to train individuals to provide compassionate and comfort care for veteran patients in palliative and hospice care.
“Upon review, VA found that Twilight Brigade was charging individuals, including veterans, a fee to attend the training in violation of Twilight Brigade’s agreement with the department, and that the care provided by the trainees focused on the general public rather than veterans,” she said. “VA terminated its agreement on that basis.”
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Eviction notices were also sent to two Jewish War Veterans posts as well as the Disabled American Veterans, and a number of organizations who meet and utilize administrative space on the campus.
“Both of these groups were asking to meet during non-operational hours, requiring additional medical center staff and resources to accommodate,” said Baxter. “VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System is a medical center, not a conference center.”
In cases where non-VA group meetings require medical center staff to work overtime to open, close, secure or clean spaces after normal business hours, or otherwise burden the facility, “the department reserves the right to discontinue them, as it is doing in this case and a number of others,” Baxter said.
VSOs use of space on VA campuses is governed by federal legislation which states that the department may provide space in VA buildings to recognized, national VSOs “for purposes of assisting claimants in the preparation, presentation, and prosecution of claims for VA benefits,” she said.
Baxter said the VA continues to provide space on the first floor of the medical center for VSOs to meet with individual veterans to assist them in resolving their claims for health care and other benefits.
“You cannot beat the bureaucracy as a single voice, but they are not going to change my mission,” Brinkley said.
While the eviction does not prevent Twilight Brigade members from visiting veterans in the hospital, Brinkley said he’s struggling to understand why the VA tossed the group out.
“It didn’t cost the VA anything, except for the space,” he said. “I paid for everything else.”
Twilight Brigade is also active in Georgia, Alabama, New York, and Washington.
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