FORT KENT – Valmond Thibodeau, 81, is a World War II veteran who has been traveling to Veterans Administration medical clinics at Togus and Caribou for years. Thibodeau was in the military from 1942 to 1945 and gets treatment for arthritis, back problems and asthma.

The Fort Kent veteran thought his days of driving to clinics would be over on March 18 when a one-day-a-week clinic was to open at the Northern Maine Medical Center.

“Having a clinic in Fort Kent would save me 90 miles each time I have to go,” he said. “It’s the same with all the other veterans around here.”

Within two weeks of its opening, however, the clinic was canceled last Friday by VA officials at Togus. The clinic, which was to cost the VA next to nothing, will not open, at least for now.

“The clinic was scheduled to open March 18,” Peter Sirois, associate director of Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, said Thursday. “Now it’s not going to happen.”

The hospital was sponsoring the clinic and had renovated space for it, spending almost $25,0000 for the project. The doctor and the nurse visiting the Monday clinic at Fort Kent were to come from the VA clinic in Caribou.

NMMC officials, like the local veterans, were told the opening of the clinic was stopped by budget constraints and new regulations in the VA. The letter came from John Sims, center director for Department of Veterans Affairs at Togus.

“It has been determined that the Fort Kent plan is a new clinic and requires approval at the congressional level,” Jim Simpson, Sims’ assistant at Togus, said Friday. “We thought we could do this as an itinerant clinic, but we can’t.

“We also have serious financial challenges in the region,” Simpson continued. “We are getting 500 to 700 new veterans a month seeking services in Maine, and we need to meet commitments we already have.”

Simpson said Togus officials believe the plan for the clinic at Fort Kent is a good one, but that they don’t have the authority to make it happen.

He said other clinic proposals are on hold elsewhere in Maine and in the Boston region of the VA.

Priscilla Staples of Fort Kent, who is an Army veteran and a veterans advocate, said there are 1,000 veterans in the St. John Valley, and many have to drive as long as two hours to get to the clinic already established in Caribou. Staples blames the Bush administration which placed a moratorium on VA clinics.

“It was all worked out and there are enough veterans to justify a new [doctor’s] position at Caribou,” she said. “The [new] doctor and nurse would come to Fort Kent one day a week.”

Members of the Maine delegation in Washington all have been working to overturn the decision made by the Boston regional office of the Veterans Administration.

“We urge you to reconsider the decision not to provide a health screening outreach service to St. John Valley veterans, and further ask that priority consideration be given to establishing this service,” U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins wrote to Dr. Jeanette Chirico-Post, Network director for VA New England, according to a news release. “The once-a-week outreach effort was perceived as a welcome solution for ill veterans.”

“The proposed extension of the existing Caribou clinic’s services to the Fort Kent area would greatly improve access to vital health care services for veterans living in this geographically isolated area,” U.S. Rep. John Baldacci wrote to Chirico-Post. “Allow this service to go forward.”

NMMC spent almost $25,000 to renovate nearly 1,000 square feet of space inside the hospital for the clinic. NMMC 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.

“We found out by fax last Friday afternoon,” Sirois of NMMC said. “We were all set for this to happen. Everything was done according to their [the VA] stipulation and direction.”

The investment by NMMC was done after plans were approved, and the facility was built to VA specifications. NMMC was not going to charge 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.

“The only cost to the VA was mileage for the two staff people coming to Fort Kent,” Sirois said. “This saves veterans from traveling to Caribou.

“Some of these veterans are very sick, and traveling can be a hardship,” the administrator said. “For some, the 45-mile trip to Caribou can be a long way.”