CLEVELAND — The person responsible for taking care of the nation's veterans says the Cleveland Veterans Affairs system is ready if a second wave of coronavirus hits.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie was in town Tuesday for a visit to the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center. Secretary Wilkie told 3 News' Russ Mitchell that health care professionals from the center have not only treated patients here, but some have been deployed to other parts of the country to help out.
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"One of the great factoids that I use is that in an organization with 400,000 employees, we have fewer requests for leave and we have fewer absences than we did at this time last year," Wilkie said. "So the people of Cleveland, VA employees of Cleveland have remained on the job. Some of them have put themselves at risk by taking care of others outside of this VA community and it is my way of saying that the veterans thank them."
The secretary says VA facilities are not and were never overwhelmed by an increase in patients over the past 5 months. They actually added employees, including almost 4,000 new registered nurses.