Contractors: VA missed chance to speed hospital work, save jobs

Lost in all the shouting going on among VA officials, contractors and politicians about the Orlando VA Medical Center's much-delayed opening are the workers getting hurt most by the project's poor oversight. Frustrating even more is that when VA officials had a chance last fall to get at least some of the new facility finished on time and put hundreds of laid-off workers back on the job, they chose not to. Delays have pushed the completion date back a year and half, from October 2012 to spring 2014, according to Brasfield & Gorrie, the main contractor for the 1.2 million-square-foot facility. The VA maintains that the medical center will be finished next summer.