Las Vegas Review-Journal
By Steve Tetreault and Keith Rogers
August 5, 2015
"The fight doesn't end here," said Carl Jones, commander of the Disabled American Veterans Pahrump Chapter 15. "Now we need the VA to build it quickly and find the right staffing to make it operational."
A series of Nevada lawmakers have pressured the VA to move forward on a new Pahrump clinic dating back to January 2012 when it was first proposed.
WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a $12.1 million contract Wednesday to build a long-awaited new health care clinic for veterans in Pahrump.
The contract to W and J Development LLC — announced on the heels of VA Secretary Robert McDonald's visit Tuesday to Southern Nevada — comes three years after the VA solicited bids and as the Nye County community watched other modern veterans health outposts open 60 miles away in Las Vegas.
A date for groundbreaking has not been set. VA spokesman Richard Beam said the agency has committed the 9,948-square-foot clinic at Basin Avenue and Lola Lane near Desert View Hospital will be completed within 18 months, "and that clock starts today."
A full service medical center in North Las Vegas and four associated community clinics opened in the Las Vegas Valley in 2012. A community outpatient clinic in Laughlin opened last year.
"The nearly 6,000 veterans in Pahrump have earned the right to have access to the same VA healthcare as veterans living in Las Vegas do," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The Pahrump facility will double the size of the current VA clinic housed in a 16-year-old modular building on East Calvada Boulevard that VA officials conceded was showing wear. About 2,500 veterans are enrolled for services at the site.
The new clinic will continue to provide primary care, mental health care, tele-medicine, social work services, radiology and lab services, according to VA spokesman Richard Beam. Reid in a fact sheet said some of the services will be expanded, as well as space added for pharmacy services.
"The benefit of the additional space will give us flexibility," Beam said. "You can't necessarily anticipate what needs the demographic will have but the space will allow us to meet needs quicker as they change."
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who sits on the Senate's veterans committee, said the new clinic "brings much-needed health care access to local veterans."
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