Clinic for St. John Valley vets opens Fort Kent facility allows once-a-week visits without need for travel to Caribou

FORT KENT – The first St. John Valley veterans to receive care from a local clinic were seen Monday afternoon by a Veterans Affairs doctor at Northern Maine Medical Center.

The one-day-per-week ancillary screening clinic will be open all day every Monday. Its opening this week marked two months to the day the March 20 announcement that it would start.

The original opening date of the clinic was March 18. Two weeks before the opening, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced that the clinic would not open. All members of the Maine congressional delegation worked to overturn the VA’s decision.

“It was opened with fanfare, flags, singing and a large number of local veterans,” Martin Bernstein, NMMC executive director, said Tuesday. “It was a great opening.”

Bernstein noted that “this is not the standard VA clinic.”

“It is a first of its kind, because most rural areas cannot qualify for clinics under present requirements,” he said.

NMMC is allowing the free use of a doctor’s office at the Fort Kent hospital. Bernstein said the office normally is closed Mondays, and that allows for the service to veterans.

The only cost to Veterans Affairs, according to Bernstein, is the travel of the three VA people staffing the clinic. Those three people are Dr. Ronald Swanson, registered nurse Sandy Flavin, and Shelly Tibbetts, a clerical worker. All three work at the Caribou VA clinic.

The three-person team will hold office hours each Monday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The clinic is open to existing VA patients.

Bernstein said the NMMC clinic allows veterans to receive services without traveling to Caribou, which is 45 miles from Fort Kent.

“A lot of elderly veterans don’t or can’t drive,” Bernstein said. “This is a service we, at NMMC, are delighted to provide.

“This helps us to be better able to continue out mission in the St. John Valley,” Bernstein said. “That is timely and useful health care.”

Bernstein was quick to give credit to local veterans for the clinic. It was they who came up with the idea, which has been in the works for quite a while.

The NMMC official said Priscilla Staples of Fort Kent, a former military nurse, “heightened awareness” for the clinic.

“It was a proud moment when we cut the ribbon to open the clinic,” Bernstein said. “Veterans will be well served by the clinic.

“It was driven by veterans, not the hospital,” he said. “We worked with officials at Togus to see that it happened.”

Area veterans groups, veterans hospital officials and representatives of congressional officials were at Monday morning’s ceremonies.

The presentation of colors was made by local veterans.

Swanson and his staff saw their first patients at about 1:30 p.m. Monday, after the official opening.