FORT HARRISON - Sen. Jon Tester will visit the regional VA hospital in Helena on Saturday and take his findings back to Washington, where a political firestorm has erupted over conditions revealed at Walter Reed Hospital.

Like Rep. Denny Rehberg, who also plans to tour the Fort Harrison Regional Medical Center next week, Tester hopes to use Montana's largest VA hospital as an example of what other VA centers can do to improve quality of care.

"I have serious questions about the VA system," Tester said Thursday. "We promise good health care to all folks who put their lives on the line, but year after year, too many of our vets have to beg for it."

Tester said veterans across Montana have called Fort Harrison a good example of how a VA hospital should work.

However, he expressed concern with a growing backlog of patients waiting for service at VA hospitals, including those in Montana.

"We made a promise to all these folks," Tester said. "How do we cut through the red tape to give our men and women in uniform the care they deserve and are promised?"

While conditions and services at Walter Reed have come under fire in recent weeks, the issue of timely service and adequate care at VA hospitals across the country isn't new.

In 2004, William Bishop, the Veterans Services Officer for a nine-state region that includes Montana, toured Fort Harrison. He also met with a roomful of veterans to talk about the VA system and how it can better accommodate the patients it was intended to serve.

During his visit, Bishop drew a picture of a more responsive VA system, one that's making changes to provide a growing veteran population with quality, hassle-free service.

"The Walter Reed issue definitely brought this back to the forefront," said Aaron Murphy, a Tester spokesman. "There are so many people new to the system. There's a sense the VA isn't prepared for the influx of new veterans."

Tester recently held listening sessions with veterans in Missoula and Hamilton. Last Saturday, he visited patients at the Montana Veterans Home in Columbia Falls, where concerns were raised over accessibility to care and reimbursement for mileage.

"The senator has already expressed his concerns over what needs to be improved," Murphy said. "The veterans have said they get great quality care. But it's the systemic thing - the problems inherent in the system nationally."

Thousands of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with physical injuries and mental-health issues are encountering an overburdened VA system, the Washington Post recently reported.

Some of those patients will require lifelong care. The problems may only grow worse as the war in Iraq goes on and the veteran population grows.

Theresa Bell, public relations officer for the Fort Harrison hospital, said that over the past 10 years, the Montana VA has grown roughly five percent a year in the number of patients it sees.

More than 31,000 unique patients were seen at VA facilities across Montana last year, resulting in about 258,000 visits. That's up from just 74,000 visits in 1995, a time when the nation was a peace.

"I want to see what makes our hospital so successful," Tester said. "I want to see how we can use it as a model for other vets' healthcare facilities across the country."