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FORT KENT – St. John Valley veterans learned Wednesday that they will have their one-day-a-week clinic after a Veterans Affairs official changed her mind.
Dr. Jeannette Chirico-Post, VA New England Healthcare Network director, made the announcement Wednesday while touring the veterans hospital at Togus, according to Jim Simpson, assistant to the director at Togus.
The decision was met Wednesday with appreciation and surprise by many. The one-day-a-week clinic at Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent had been scheduled to open March 18, but the VA canceled its opening March 1.
“It’s just great,” Priscilla Staples, an Army veteran and veterans advocate in Fort Kent, said by telephone. “This will help our older veterans with better service, and that’s what this is all about.”
“That’s great, and we are very excited about this,” Peter Sirois, NMMC associate director, said Wednesday afternoon. “I hope that we can open this within a very short time.”
Members of the Maine congressional delegation all worked to overturn the decision.
“We will get health care for our veterans at Fort Kent,” 2nd District U.S. Rep. John Baldacci said. “The VA has reversed its decision today, and this happened because of the concerns raised by people of the St. John Valley.”
U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins said Wednesday in a prepared statement: “The one-day-a-week outreach effort in Fort Kent is a very welcome solution to ill veterans traveling great distances just to receive a health screening. We applaud Dr. Post for recognizing that this outreach effort is needed, and that it is an efficient and proper use of tax dollars.”
Staples said there are 1,000 veterans in the St. John Valley, and many have had to drive two hours to get to a clinic held in Caribou.
Simpson said the Fort Kent clinic will be open for existing patients now going to Caribou for services. It will not accept new clients. The VA doctor and nurse who will serve the clinic will go to Fort Kent one day a week from the VA clinic at Caribou.
“This should be a great service based on clinical need,” Simpson said. “We would like to make it happen as quickly as we can, but no date has been set.”
The change of heart, according to Simpson, came because the project was innovative and involved good community partnerships. The cost to the VA is minimal, and “it just made sense,”
St. John Valley veterans who thought their days of driving a long distance for medical care were over were stunned and appalled at the earlier decision. Supporters of the project were told the opening of the clinic was stopped by budget constraints and new VA regulations.
NMMC spent nearly $25,000 to renovate about 1,000 square feet of space inside the hospital for the clinic. The medical center paid the bill, thinking the money would be recouped over a number of years by the number of medical tests that would be conducted for veterans at the hospital.
The investment by NMMC was done after plans were approved, and the facility was built to VA specifications. NMMC is not charging the VA any rent for the renovated space.
While it took nearly two years to put the package together, NMMC went ahead with the work after an October 2001 commitment from the VA. The project was started with the leadership of local veterans groups and Cary Medical Center of Caribou.
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