To the Editor:

In response to “Massena Memorial Hospital Loses Contract To Run VA Clinic,” this was a legitimately new news article for me, and I am also a veteran.

The news is going to be nearly debilitating to many, a hardship to a lot, and probably a gain for some others. But either way, is it fair to just suddenly rip out a VA facility like that?

We have many veterans who need the services there and I didn't see any mention of what their other locations would be.

I read the article three times hoping I'd missed something that actually made things better but it just isn't there. Nothing there about the evil it may cause too.

I did not realize that veteran's services could so easily and so quickly ripped away from a participating community. Simply because some vendor doesn't want to have business in an area is a mighty pathetic thing to do to the people that depend on it.

I plan to submit a letter of complaint to the VA's main offices in the hopes this sort of thing can be prevented in the future.

Any why is/was it up to the hospital to get this news out to the public? It looks to me like all the changes and head-rolling hasn't gone nearly as deep as it should have, with all the head rolling and reshuffling the VA has been doing over the last many months.

The VA has some real accomplishments under its belt and straightened out a lot of the unfairness by the system and people who screwed the veterans for so many years. So here is another are for them to look into.

Tom Rivet`

Heuvelton