Terre Haute VA Clinic to open Dec. 20
Dec. 8—The new Terre Haute Veterans Affairs Clinic is slated to open Dec. 20.
A virtual town hall, via Zoom, is planned for 6 p.m. Thursday for veterans to learn more about the clinic. That can be found at www.zoomgov.com, with the webinar ID of 161 186 8641. The event can also be viewed via Facebook at VAIndianapolis.
"This clinic is long overdue. Veterans in the Terre Haute/Vigo County area certainly deserve enhanced veterans services," said Laura E. Ruzick, executive director of Veteran Health Indiana and CEO of the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, which oversees the veterans healthcare system in Indiana.
Veteran Affairs officials on Monday provided media a walk through of the new facility at 5080 East Bill Farr Drive, on Terre Haute's east side.
"This will be a one-stop shop for [veterans], such as phlebotomy, radiology, physical therapy and pharmacy services," Ruzick said. "This is their VA [clinic]. We really hope we will have new enrollees as a result of this clinic. We can accommodate about 10,000 veterans and we are serving about 7,600 right now," Ruzick said.
Ruzick said the new Terre Haute clinic was needed geographically to better service veterans in the Wabash Valley, who had to travel to Indianapolis or Illinois for treatment. Terre Haute is the third new VA clinic to open this year in Indiana, behind new clinics in Brownsburg and Lafayette.
"If you had to drive an hour for your health care, I think you might think twice on some days," Ruzick said. "This makes it convenient. We are all about preventative health care ... so that they don't have to be in the hospital ... or their chronic disease can be managed locally."
Veterans can register at www.va.gov/health-care.
The new VA Clinic will have 80 staff employees.
"We are 95% staffed now," said Deirdre Epps, VA site manager, "and will be ready to go. There were [staffing] challenges. However, we were able to move through those and retain some great talent to stay here. We were able to move [some staff] from our West 10th Street location [in Indianapolis] as well as some employees coming from surrounding VA clinics who were interested in Terre Haute," she said, including from northern Indiana as well as Danville, Illinois.
Epps said primary care and mental health services will be combined in the new clinic, versus two separate current locations that has primary care at 142 W. Honey Creek Parkway and mental health at 4612 S. Springhill Junction.
Services will include audiology, optometry, pharmacy, physical therapy, radiology, blood draw, prosthetics, social work and home-based primary care.
The new VA Clinic will have six teams, each with a physician or nurse practitioner, a registered nurse, license practical nurse and a medical specialist [receptionist], said Lisa Blankenberger, registered nurse unit manager.
The new facility has 20 examination rooms, four blood draw stations, an X-ray room and a pharmacy, Blankenberger said.
Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached 812-231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com. Follow on Twitter@TribStarHoward.
