PHOENIX — Editor's Note: The above video is from an earlier broadcast.
The Phoenix Veteran Affairs Health Care System says it has resumed conducting surgeries in a facility that had been infested with rodents.
The VA was forced to halt surgeries and relocate a number of patients at its Community Living Center earlier this month after staff discovered ceiling damage that had been caused by rats.
A VA spokesperson said Friday that 11 days have passed without any sign of rodents in the facility's operating room, thus prompting the VA to resume scheduling surgeries.
But patients will not be moved back into the CLC area since two rodents were caught Wednesday on the facility's second floor, the spokesperson said.
The VA has not observed any new rodent activity in other parts of the facility. Staff is continuing to station cameras in strategic locations, utilize extensive trapping, and seal all possible entry points in the building.
The Phoenix VA has been the subject of national scrutiny over the last decade after whistleblowers revealed in 2014 that veterans were dying because they waited too long to receive medical care.
An Arizona veteran was awarded $2.5 million by a judge in 2017 after proving his terminal cancer could have been cured if the Phoenix VA had diagnosed it sooner.
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