CENTER TWP — Gripes, questions and suggestions all found their way to the director of VA Butler Healthcare during a public meeting Wednesday evening.

Jon Lasell, the director, met in person with about 15 veterans and veteran family members in a town-hall meeting at Abie Abraham VA Health Care Center. A main mission of the meeting was to collect required public input on the Mission Act, a group of changes at the federal level passed last year that will open the doors for VA patients to be sent to private health care providers. Public input collection ends at the end of the month.

However, when the evening's presentation ceased and the floor opened for questions, most present had little to ask about VA movements toward private practices and instead offered more specific frustrations about VA Butler Healthcare.

Those questions included things like entrances to the very building where the meeting took place. Why are rear entrances, which are near facilities like the heart health department, closed to patients? What about those who can't walk long distances?

Lasell suggested some solutions, that were received well by some: wheelchairs are at the building's entrance, and staff are around who will physically help patients get where they're going. They're also sorting out how to make electric scooters available for the patients, but issues like charging stations and liability have so far prevented their rollout.

“We are working on it,” Lasell said.

Many similar gripes were met with a similar response. Once, when told by a patient that he'd waited more than a year for a decision about whether a treatment would be covered, Lasell said it was a wrong that needed righting.

“That shocks me,” he said. “We need to talk about this.”

On other issues he had nothing to offer other than to direct questioners to their federal representatives. Conversations with the crowd were generally genial.

Bud and Connie Murray of Saxonburg both said they were happy to be asking the people in charge questions directly.

Bud said he was glad to hear Lasell asked about the entrances to the building.

“Whoever designed this did not design it for old people,” he said.

On the other hand, though, he thought Lasell handled that question, and others, well.

Evelyn Gross of Butler said she had no issues with the Mission Act so long as it wasn't a stepping stone for politicians to do away with the VA altogether. People who aren't veterans, she reasoned, don't know the experience of being a veteran or of being in war, and treatment in a veteran-centric environment is much better.

She was happy to be hearing answers, and non-answers, straight from their local leader's mouth.

“From him, you should be getting the straight skinny,” Gross said, laughing.