It took them 134 days to answer our questions.

The Committee has conducted aggressive and historic oversight in the four months since the depth of VA's many deficiencies has come to light.

We are here today on your behalf to ensure that the care you receive is timely, convenient, accessible, and high-quality.

Thank you all for taking time out of your day to join us and for the work that you do to support and honor our nation's veterans.

You have not been able to reconcile the data on number of veterans served in the area.

I think it might be because they have not gotten answers to their original questions.

I am very concerned. As a representative of the VA, do you believe that you are carrying out the mission of the VA?

I believe one of them--it was a conversation that happened several months ago about checkups for pacemakers no longer being done here in Hot Springs, stress tests being moved to different facilities.

I do not fault them one bit for not bringing that up during this process.

But as we lose services here, it obviously would cause more veterans to seek care in Rapid City as well.

So you are saying the standard of care changed and that is why that service can no longer be offered here at Hot Springs.

the thing that is really unfortunate about the situation is that one of the biggest reasons you have used for closing down the Hot Springs facility has been cost and to the detriment of our veterans.

But I would like to know what changes you are implementing.

Secretary Shinseki, when we had a meeting with him in Washington, DC and talked about his decision to move forward with the EIS process--he promised that there would be no more reduction in services at this facility while we went through…

So have you come closer together in number? Have you reconciled after you wrote these letters?

So tell me what your ideal hiring process would look like.

So you are not laying the blame on the Hot Springs facility, that this facility for some reason is the anchor that is dragging down the rest of the system?

So when you remove services, do you remove the ability to service patients?