TOGUS – The backlog of Mainers waiting to see a Veterans Affairs physician has reached a record 5,800 – and the number is growing by 500 to 700 a month.

Togus VA Medical Center spokesman Jim Simpson said newly enrolled veterans will have to wait at least a year to get their first appointment. A veterans advocate said the wait is actually closer to two years.

Simpson said doctors and other medical providers at the hospital, and at the five clinics it oversees, are “trying to do everything we can do” to help veterans.

But the growing number of veterans in search of services is taxing “our ability to keep up with it,” said Simpson.

Simpson said many of the difficulties can be traced to inadequate funding to recruit physicians, particularly specialists.

The Togus VA hospital is expecting an infusion of money soon to hire more practitioners, he said, but not enough to meet all demands being placed on it for services. He added that a new section is being added to the hospital to expand clinical services and make room for more medical staff.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins praised the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Friday for agreeing to change its reimbursement rules, a move the Maine senators said will mean about $25 million more in funding for New England’s veterans hospitals.

It was not immediately clear how much of the funding would be earmarked for Togus.

The change “brings us substantially closer to the type of equitable funding our region needs,” Snowe and Collins said in a statement.

New England senators met with Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi in the spring about reimbursement rates. At that time, Principi said he would review the issue.

The additional money for New England will come from a broadening of Veterans Affairs’ categories of reimbursement to its hospitals, the senators said. Also, the region received an additional $6.8 million in funding from Congress in this year’s supplemental spending bill, and is expected to receive a 7.4 percent funding increase next year, they said.

New England lawmakers have long complained that the region has been shortchanged, resulting in the lengthy backlogs for care at VA facilities.

The VA’s New England Health Care System serves 195,000 veterans who use eight VA medical centers and 37 clinics.

Simpson at Togus said the number of veterans seeking the services of the VA system is growing because service eligibility was expanded several years ago. Other veterans come to the VA because they lack other health insurance.

Ron Warner, a former Marine who fought in Vietnam and now lives in Bangor, said the hospital also has to work with failing medical equipment, which means some veterans will have to wait even longer to have certain conditions treated.

Simpson said Warner is right. For instance, a high-tech camera used in arthroscopic surgery is out of order, but a replacement is being sought, he said.

Additionally, new audiology equipment was being installed Thursday. Simpson said the wait for veterans seeking hearing-related services should become shorter once the equipment is running and more employees are hired to run it.