Animation: Opening graphic sequence for the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System
with a collage of images from various medical services.  The VA Pittsburgh
Healthcare System logo appears over top of the collage of images.

Director Moreland: Today we are groundbreaking the first step, this next step,
in the commitment made to the VA by the VA to build new facilities for our
veterans.  Those new facilities help us continue the move to the future in
providing health care to America's veterans.

Senator Santorum: I'm excited to be here to talk more specifically about
what's going on here in the Pittsburgh area.  We believe that our commitment
to our veterans here in Western Pennsylvania is to give them not only the
best services that these excellent men and women here at the VA hospital
system are giving but also to do it in the best facilities.  And so what
we are trying to do is to upgrade the facilities here and we are in a process
that Mike shared with you of trying to upgrade systematically the facilities
here in Western Pennsylvania.  We just came from a groundbreaking for a
parking facility, a huge parking garage, fifteen hundred spaces, you can see
the big hole in the back of this building that we're going to actually
remedy that problem and give our veterans a state-of-the-art parking facility
so they can access a state-of-the-art hospital facility.

Senator Santorum: Some of the things, some of the other projects that we're
going to be investing in is going to be about 200 million dollars in
investments here in Southwestern Pennsylvania. As I mentioned, the 37 million
dollars for the 1500-car parking garage, we have 13 million dollars that
you're going to be hearing about from Lou Astorino for the design of the
new hospital facility.  The VA Pittsburgh was awarded 1.5 million dollars
for a demolition contract to create the, for the vacant buildings up at
Aspinwall, or I guess they call it the Heinz Division, and the majority of
the demolition work has been completed and is ahead of schedule.  And by
the way, Mike was just telling me that the parking garage is on budget, and
on schedule?  And on schedule.  So again more good news for what we're doing.

Senator Santorum: The other thing I think is important is you're hearing,
is that all of the, whether it's the demolition work that's being done
by Eagle Contracting of Pittsburgh, or whether it's Lou in designing
the facility here, or whether it's P.J. Dick and the parking garage,
or whether it's Sterling Contracting from Homestead which is doing the
Emergent Care Center up at Aspinwall or whether it's James Construction
of Carnegie which is doing a 2.1 million dollar relocation of the Eye Clinic
- All of that is being done with local contractors, to create local jobs,
to make sure that the profit stays here locally, that it's reinvested in our
community and that we're building better facilities for our veterans in the
meantime.  So we've got a lot of good news to talk about here as far as what
we're doing to improve the quality of care for our veterans but we also have
a good news story of what we're doing to the economy of Southwestern
Pennsylvania, employing people here and employing businesses who are here to
serve our community.  So it's a very exciting day.  We've made a lot of progress.

Senator Santorum: And I will say to all the veterans, I've made this promise
ever since we talked about quote "the closing of Highland Drive," is that until
these facilities are open and available and all services are available, we're
not closing Highland Drive until the services are available here for our veterans.

Director Moreland: I"m glad you mentioned about the quality of health care and
the veterans that we treat and the employees.  Five years ago we treated 39
thousand veterans in one year.  Last year we treated 56 thousand veterans in
one year.  Every year in the last five years, our quality indicators have
improved.  We're providing better health care to more veterans.  And that's
being done by our quality staff and the volunteers who are here regularly
helping us get our job done, so I appreciate that.

Louis Astorino: I want to say that Astorino is honored to be serving you
veterans.  We're honored to be serving you.  We're glad also that the VA
chose local talent to prove that health care, new health care design, is to
be designed as a healing environment and using local talent to show that is
something that we are very proud of and we're very grateful for.  The VA
Pittsburgh Healthcare System project has been a model for how governmental
projects can be accomplished, from everything that we have seen.  Planning
and communication between the VA Pittsburgh leaders and VA Central Office
officials has been the key to eliminating delays and fast tracking the
operation.  This project is on schedule and on budget and when completed,
people will come from all over the United States to see a world-class health
care facility for the veterans, done right here in Pittsburgh, first.
Thank you.

Jeff Turconi: On behalf of P.J. Dick we're very proud as well to be part of
this project, really to serve the veterans as well as the local Pittsburgh
 area.  You know, Lou mentioned the 200 or so employees of Astorino that are
benefiting from this project.  From a P.J. Dick standpoint, we have over
130 professional staff members and we employ as many as 250-500 local
union tradesmen.  So this project, again, being kept locally in Pittsburgh
with the local P.J. Dick contracting company as well as providing
opportunities for the local union workers is a tremendous boost to our
economy.  It's a great part of P.J. Dick's business.  We're very proud
and honored to be a part of it and we certainly hope as the project
continues that we're able to sit up here a few months from now and say,
"We completed your project, your parking garage, on time and on budget,"
because that's our goal.

Director Moreland: In May 2004, the secretary at the time, Secretary Principi,
and Senator Specter came to the VA Pittsburgh and we announced the VA's
commitment to build this project.  Today, Senator Rick Santorum came to
turn the dirt over for the beginning of that construction project.  And
now we're just working to build the rest of these buildings that you see
that represent the culmination of that commitment to America's veterans.
We're really fortunate to have the kind of leadership we have around us,
to help make this happen, the kind of people we get to work with locally,
who can make this happen.  And most importantly remember that we're doing
this for the veterans that we care for.