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Area VA clinic still in works
Published July 26, 2009
LAKE JACKSON — Though area veterans are wondering why the Veterans Affairs Clinic they were promised in 2004 hasn’t materialized, VA officials said delays like this one are typical.
“We’re in negotiations,” said Henry Ostermann, clinical support service line executive at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. It is common for a VA clinic to take years to build.
“We’re dealing with taxpayers’ money,” Ostermann said. “We have to be as frugal as we can.”
In 2004, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced 11 outpatient clinics for veterans would be built in Texas. One of them was planned for Lake Jackson. Other clinics announced to be built in the Houston area will be in Katy, Richmond, Tomball and Conroe, and two in the Galveston area.
Some of the other clinics scheduled to be built in the Houston area are seeing similar delays, Ostermann said.
A Galveston outpatient clinic was built in 2005, Ostermann said. It was destroyed by Hurricane Ike and was rebuilt in March, he said.
Conroe’s clinic opened in 2007, but VA officials still are working toward opening the clinic in Richmond.
Tomball and Katy clinics still are in the works, but they will be larger than the VA Medical Center in Houston will be able to oversee, Ostermann said. They will be handled by federal officials.
More than 24,000 veterans need access to medical care in Brazoria County, saidJ.W. Rhyne Jr., Commander of the Disabled American Veterans Chapter 39 and van coordinator for the Houston VA Medical Center.
Rhyne coordinates the van service that takes up to seven veterans from Brazoria County to the VA Medical Center four or five times a week. This service is paid for by the VA, Rhyne said.
“If we get the clinic in Lake Jackson, I’m sure we’re still going to have people going to the VA hospital,” Rhyne said, but there could be fewer trips.
A local clinic would eliminate the overload at clinics in Galveston and Houston where veterans must go now, he said.
“We need a clinic down here for veterans of Brazoria County, and we have a lot of them,” Rhyne said.
Ostermann and other VA officials agree and say they hope to build a clinic as soon as possible.
“We would love to have it open,” Ostermann said. “It will be open just as soon as all of the little pieces come together.”
Ostermann was unable to give a definite timeline for the clinic to be built and would not disclose where officials were looking at land.
Though Ostermann believes the wait to be typical, veterans are ready for the clinic to be opened in Lake Jackson.
“There shouldn’t have been any holdup with the process at all,” Rhyne said.
Outpatient clinics take the place of the primary care physician for veterans, Rhyne said. Doctors at the clinics can prescribe medicine and order blood work or X-rays at reduced or no cost to veterans, he said.
City officials said they supported an outpatient clinic in Lake Jackson. However, they have yet to receive any requests for variances or proposals from clinic officials.
“A VA Clinic is important to any place,” Mayor Bob Sipple said. “It’s important to us and the Brazosport community.”
Katlynn Lanham covers Lake Jackson for The Facts. Contact her at (979) 237-0150.
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