Wilkie was a witness this morning for joining us and since this is her first touring with some members to spain remotely id like to begin by offering a brief explanation of how it will work in order to benefit both members and the public. First, this searing room has been configured to maintain the recommended sixfoot social distancing between members, witnesses and other individuals in the room necessary to operate the hearing. As i mentioned some members have opted to use secure video teleconferencing which allows them to participate remotely. For those on the Video Conference once you start speaking there would be a slight delay before you are displayed on the main screen as i am now. To minimize background was to ask members are participating virtually remain on mute until it is your turn to ask questions. Please remember to mute yourself at the conclusion of your questions. Should you seek additional time please unmute yourself so i will recognize you. Just like if you were in the room and you want to get the chairs attention you would turn your mic on and ask for attention. For those produced many remotely your voice will activate your appearing on the screen across room so just know it doesnt go on, you dont move to the scrn until you actually begin speaking. I remind on members and witnesses the fiveminute clock still applies. If there is a difficult issue will move to the next member until the issue is resolved and you will retain the balance of your time. For members using the video option you will notice a clock on the bottom of your screen. That will show how much time is remaining. At one minute remaining the clock will turn yellow. At 36 remain i will gently tap the gavel to my members that the is almost expired. When your time has expired the clock will turn red and i will begin to recognize the next member. In terms of the speaking order we will follow the order set forth in the house rules beginning with the chair and Ranking Member and thin members present at the time to drink is called to order will be recognized in order of seniority and finally members not present at the time during his called order, order. Todays fincas on the his response to the covid19 pandemic. Again we welcome the department of Veterans Affairs secretary Robert Wilkie who is joined by dr. Paul lawrence under sector for benefits at the Veterans Benefits administration, mr. Jon rychalski, assistant secretary and chief Financial Officer and dr. Jennifer macdonald chief consultant to the deputy under secretary for health. Thank you all for being here today. I cannot underscore enough the importance of ensuring as we try to take care for veterans and do everything in our power to keep our frontline healthcare workers safe. This hearing is an important opportunity to provide oversight of almost 20 billion congress has appropriated to v. A. In emergency funding in the family first Coronavirus Response actor and the cares act to assist v. A. In combating the ended. Both of the funny with divided is for direct funding and it is her due to oversee that funding to ensure v. A. Isnt mincing and veterans are receiving the utmost and highest quality of care especially during these unprecedented times. With that money would expect v. A. To provide a personal protective equipment, or ppe, to every Single Person working in the facility and for the patients when necessary. As soon as one covid positive patient walks through the door of ap facility every v. A. Employee working there is at risk for contracting the virus whether theyre directly treating the patient into coronavirus or not. I understand shortage of supplies and unstable supply chain issues contributed to v. A. Supplementation of austerity measures to providing ppe but only providing ppe different lengthy a healthcare workers typically only those who were trading directly covid19 patients was unacceptable especially given the amount of interaction other v. A. Employees have who may or may not display symptoms of the virus. We all know and are well aware that you do not have to be symptomatic in order to be carrying the virus. I am glad v. A. Has started to make steps in the right direction after unrelenting backlash from congress on the irresponsible ppe policy and assess updated it to reflect the needs to provide one mask for every employee regardless of interaction or not. I appreciated the opportunity to talk with you throughout this crisis, express our concerns and also get feedback on how we could be helpful to you in making sure we could write that ship. Despite this being the policy on paper, i am still hearing concerns that the field level is not being implemented consistently. Many veterans and employees are still left unprotected. V. A. Must make sure it is communicating effectively, its not enough to issue guidance regarding health and safety veterans and v. A. Employees pick v. A. Must ensure such guidance is being adhered to and implemented consistently. Further, v. A. Must everything in his power to be conventional standards and ppe usage. Any austerity or contingency measure on usage leaves veterans of healthcare workers vulnerable to infections. This is especially egregious with the present has the limited authority to fix a from of a lack of supplies and ppe by fully invoking the defense protection act so american businesses can completely fill the gap in the supply chain for these vital resources which is the defense production act purpose. V. A. Would no longer had to compete for scarce supplies like it currently does and v. A. Could revert back to conventional practices rather than austerity measures in a diminishing ppe. Further, exacerbating problem scarce resource great the right condition for price schedule gs many copies are taking advantage of. A propublica piece published a couple weeks ago shed light on the issue of small and express contractors charging exorbitant prices scarce ppe and v. A. Agreed to pay that price because of that desperate the situation. I understand these unprecedented times we need to do for the weekend to protect our veterans and are frontline healthcare workers were putting their lives at risk to combat the study by resource to protecting taxpayer dollars to do so. Additionally within the Funding Congress appropriated we want to make sure v. A. Is providing adequate testing to veterans and to its employees. I cannot stress enough the importance of testing as obese only way we can get a handle on how the virus is spreading and where. We need adequate testing to make americans feel safe. We do not have a consistent cover hints testing policy at v. A. , and that must change. This is especially important that v. A. Makes the decision to reopen its facilities around the country beyond emergency and urgent care. V. A. Has begun reopening at 20 for sosa plans to reopen additional facilities and start resume or services in a in a fh process but we need to make sure we have sound policies in place so we dont fight these fights in the virus as before. Lastly, when veterans are at v. A. Hospitals we need to make sure theyre being treated with the utmost quality of care. More and more information is coming out about how it affected a potentially deadly the antimalarial drug hydroxy cork wine is to covid positive patients. What is sent to me is v. A. Is still insisting a providing this drug to veterans. Yet v. A. Cannot effectively to mitigate the circumstances in which the drug is administered. I hope that changes today. We clearly have a lot of ground to cover today. Thank you all for being to this one and look for it your testimony, mr. Secretary. Id like to yield to my Ranking Member judge carter for his Opening Statement at please note there may be a delay before he is displayed on the main screen. Judge carter. Good morning from round rock, texas. And chairman, thank you for this hearing today. Just to let you know that right now it is 67 degrees outside the lone star state, it would be upper 85 today which is kind of cool for us. Im really glad to be aired today. I never thought i would city in my home kelly communicating. This is quite a step. This hearing is a a big step fr the appropriations committee, and the house of representatives, and a first steps are proud to be part of it. I congratulate chairwoman lowey, Ranking Member granger for their leadership in this and im very proud of our subcommittee chairwoman who has been working very hard to get this done right. I think all of them and congratulate them for all their work. As a member, who cannot attend this hearing, its hard i guess this is a bass ill be able to do and im grateful for it. As we continue with our oversight of the department of Veterans Affairs, especially its response to covid19 and the use of supplemental funding provided just two months ago, secretary wilkie, thank you for being here to talk to us about the v. A. Response to covid19. Covid19. In many ways the v. A. Has been at the forefront of americas response and has been a leader those affected by the pandemic. V. A. Quick and decisive actions to protect residents civic center and other special care facilities spare many veterans serious injury or illness. V. A. Has also stepped up a system and as individual employees they will work out [inaudible] provide urgent need for doctors and nurses, dads, equipment and medicine in every corner of the United States. A large decentralize National Healthcare system could so quickly and effectively respond like that v. A. Did, never losing focus on their first vision, which is care for our veterans. The v. A. Has some problems in maintaining supplies a personal protective equipment for its employees contracting procedures and will discuss these issues today. We also need to discuss the supplemental funding provided by the cares act and whether theres a need for additional funding and in the follow up package that may be coming in future years. I want to thank the committees Technology Staff and the house e Recording Studio for the very diligent work. Were holding this hearing today because of your knowhow and willingness to help us learn, and i personally thank you. Madam chair, take it again for yielding me this time, and i yield back. Thank you, judge carter. And appreciate your kind words, and join you in thinking appropriations staff as well as the Technology Staff and house Recording Studio. This is one of the outside of the rules committee, the first with outside witness hearing. Outside witness hybrid hearings will be of some members participating remotely and some in person, and there was lots of rehearsal, dress rehearsals tt went into this to make sure everything was going to go smoothly and and i think all oe numbers for the cooperation and thats the spirit of this committee. It always has been and its deeply appreciated so that we can continue to do the work that is so important for us to do. Judge carter, a cue for your thoughtful remarks. Now i would like to yield to the full committee chair, congresswoman nita lowey for opening remarks. And again, there might be a slight delay before she appears on the screen. Madam chair, you are recognized. Chairwoman schultz and transceiver holding this very important hearing, and i welcome secretary wilkie and other distinguished officials, and i think our Committee Staff for navigating this new way of conducting business. Before we begin our discussion on the heels of memorial day, we would be remiss not to mention our recent calls for the removal of nazi headstones at some of our cemeteries. Although predecessors may have allowed them. Today, we need to do the right thing and remove these offensive symbols from the solemn ground where our brave warriors rest. During this horrible coronavirus crisis, our responsibility to the men and women who have served our country has never been more vital. This administrations lack of preparedness and mismanagement has led the needless deaths and suffering, and much fear among veterans. Their families and Healthcare Professionals who care for them. To date, there have been more than 13,500 cases of covid19 diagnosed throughout v. A. Healthcare facilities. Of the 1193 tragic deaths, 241 has occurred in new york. The situation, and even more tragic, in state run veteran homes where our most vulnerable veterans have been denied the highest quality of care that v. A. Has responsibility to oversee and ensure that facilities are meeting the a standard of care, and v. A. Should have sent them sooner to hell. For nearly three months the v. A. Healthcare workers have risked their lives, and the lives of patients, the because of the shortage of personal protective equipment. The lack of urgency by the v. A. To address this need has likely contributed to additional sickness and death. I do hope that we are all on the same page and that we can work to fix this issue which is so outrageous. Veterans have suffered because of disruption to routine physical and Mental Health care visits. Many faced the stress and burden of unemployment, homelessness, and uncertainty. And at a time when veterans most need the v. A. To be ahead of the curve, it is falling behind. We need to understand what went wrong, why then we can understand and identify what needs to be done to avoid this shameful treatment of veterans in the future. So thank you. I look forward to your statements, and i do look forward to answers to our questions. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Appreciate your thoughtful remarks. Mr. Secretary, as always your full stable we entered into the record and you recognize to summarize your remarks for five minutes. Thank you very much, and what you thank you also for your available to meet throughout this. I value that relationship and i think it is incredibly important. To the department. We are fighting a war that very few people in america would have predicted just a few months ago. Our doctors, nurses and staff are routinely putting their lives on the line and sacrificing time with their families to care for veterans, most of them most are older and vulnerable to the fires. 31 of our Staff Members have passed away, and as you know we have lost hundreds of veterans to this disease. But the news is not all grim. From the start v. A. Took an aggressive posture to protect our patient from covid19 and our staff has worked tirelessly to carry it out with great success. Here is where we stand. We have diagnosed 11,500 veterans with the virus, but over 9000 of them have fully recovered if that is, 76 . Today, we we are only treating 1500 veterans for the virus out of the over 9. 2 million veterans who are in our system. We are stocked with supplies. On average, vha has a a minimuf two weeks a plan head of each type of ppe, gloves, i protection, massachusetts, dance and sanitizer. We are staffed in part because of the changes weve made in our hiring process. The last five weeks we have hired more than 10,000 medical staff including 3000 nurses and as i discussed with the chair yesterday, i intend to keep these processes in place. If i need to come for a legislative fix, i will be doing so after consultation with you. Our infection rate among the a staff i can argue is the lowest of any Healthcare System in the country. It is either half of 1 or lower. And i credit the steps that we took early on to protect those on the front lines with these incredibly low numbers. We were the first Healthcare System and the First Federal agency to activate our emergency procedures. We did so in january. Establishing 19 Emergency OperationCenters Across the country. We did begin to manage our supplies with ppe, and as ive been candid with the chair, our regular supply chain was disrupted by this National Emergency and we have changed to meet that emergency. In some ways we have stressed the system which i think would be better for the future. Telehealth services have expanded exponentially. In a normal month we would conduct 40,000 Mental Health tell a visits here we are now at 900,000. We are reaching areas of the country that we never thought we would reach, particularly and tribal and rural america. This is a game changer particularly when it comes to Mental Health. In april we began working our Fourth Mission in earnest. Taking in nonveterans in hotspots in the point via staff to Nursing Homes and state veterans homes that needed our expertise, and issue i know some of you will want to talk about today. In addition, our veterans and if its admission has worked out to more than 400,000 veterans and continue to talk about our response and answer questions about their benefits during the crisis. Our National Cemetery administration has taken steps to ensure that loved ones are encouraged madam chair, you need to mute your line. Secretary, you can resume. That our veterans are interred in a mr. Secretary, you can proceed. Please, proceed. Ill just the verge, i was privileged to address several veterans of the quantico National Cemetery on memorial day. As i was looking out down the hill i saw veterans families gathering on that day to pay their respects to their loved ones. Our veteran cemeteries have never closed. Our hospitals have never closed. At the end i believe that our people have turned v. A. Into a learning organization that was able to turn on a dime in this crisis and transform itself from an institution that many of us have known, some of us have looked at for many years. I cant think them enough for their agility. I cant thank them enough for putting themselves in harms way to serve their fellow americans, and i thank you, madam chair, for allowing me to speak. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Now i would like to begin by five minutes of questions. Mr. Secretary, i want to start of this in discussing the issue of personal protective equipment, or ppe, which i note has been huge issue for the v. A. As a gifted v. A. Has had a