Rapidly Expanding Veterans Care Needs, Finally!

And many more related, long needed but ignored, other area's as to Veterans Issues!

VA secretary visits project

Jun. 24, 2010 Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki said he wants veterans to know there is a safe place for them to heal after war.

{LEIGH COLEMAN/SPECIAL TO THE SUN HERALD Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, left, stopped to talk to local veterans during his tour of the construction site at the VA Gulf Coast Veterans facilities on Thursday. Chris Levelle, right, was working at the site when Shinseki visited.}

Shinseki spent Thursday touring the $310 million construction project at the Biloxi VA.

After touring the sites for new mental-health and community-living center buildings Shinseki made his way to Keesler Air Force Base medical center, where he discussed joint initiatives between the VA and the Department of Defense with officials.

“We want all veterans to know they have a place here and the other facilities around the country,” Shinseki said during the tour. “There is more of a connection in progress now. Veterans count and they used to not feel that way.

Snip

The new projects under construction at the VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System includes a Blind Rehabilitation Center with training areas and 26 inpatient beds, a 64-bed mental-health facility, a 94-bed Extended Care Community Living Center with nursing home and extended-care programs, a four-story clinical addition with a 20-bed medical/surgical unit, a five-story parking garage and an expanded energy plant. Continued

There was a ground breaking on another really big project yesterday, 06.25.2010. This one right in the city of New Orleans that will be a Campus of Veterans Care Facilities, some new some rehabilitated existing buildings. I have a post up with a couple of backlinks to the reports on this.

And here's an article, and another related link, about the ground breaking:

5 years post-Katrina, VA hospital groundbreaking

25 Jun 2010 A VA hospital being built to replace one flooded by Hurricane Katrina will create a New Orleans biosciences corridor and reap thousands of jobs, the U.S. chief of Veterans Affairs promised at a Friday groundbreaking.

{Artist conception of the new VA Hospital (FOX 8 News} related article}

VA Secretary Eric K. Shenseki joined Gov. Bobby Jindal and some 650 others — about half of them veterans — in dedicating the 30-acre construction project. Shenski said the new hospital will bring about 2,000 construction jobs and eventually 2,200 permanent jobs with average salaries of $95,000.

"We are creating a new start, one that will be a national model of patient health care all over the nation for decades to come," Shinseki said of the planned $240-bed VA hospital and its associated buildings. Continued

And these are just very recent reports of what's been happening as to the VA and Veterans Issues, especially care, as it joins the 21st century, you can sign up to receive, or visit the site, of the Veterans Administration Press Releases which have been coming on a regular basis since this administration came into being.