“Following the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act being signed into law on March 27, the Department of Veterans Affairs has begun allocating its share of the bill’s funding to caring for veterans and strengthening its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The CARES Act designated a multifaceted funding stream to the VA that is intent on bolstering services ranging from direct medical care and telehealth to assistance for veteran borrowers and homeowners.”
“’VA has been moving quickly to implement the president’s intent to hire new staff, take care of homeless veterans, use our cutting-edge telehealth technology to keep appointments, help state-run veterans homes,’ VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a press release.”
“A significant portion of the funding — $17.2 billion in total — is being allocated directly to the Veterans Health Administration as the VA begins to organize itself to fulfill the agency’s ‘fourth mission’ and provide emergency medical support and care amidst a national crisis. Much of the VA’s current focus has shifted toward using its available resources and human capital to provide additional treatment space and personnel to aid parts of the country whose local health care systems become overextended while caring for COVID-19 patients.”
“A considerable amount of the $17.2 billion allocated to the VHA is supporting the agency’s push to recruit a bulwark of medical personnel who will focus exclusively on COVID-19 triage and care. The mounting epidemic has created newfound demand for caregivers dedicated exclusively to treating COVID-19 patients, a contingency that is leading the agency to creating separate wards for novel coronavirus triage as well as mobile field hospitals that can deploy to regions suffering from a deficit of available physicians and facilities…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Begins Implementing CARES Act Provisions – By Adam Patterson, April 10, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
