RUMFORD – With Maine having the highest percentage of veterans in the country, U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, said Wednesday afternoon that he and a bipartisan group in Congress are looking to expand the number of outpatient medical clinics in rural states.
In Maine, that could mean new sites in Lewiston-Auburn, Houlton, Lincoln, Dover-Foxcroft and possibly Farmington.
About 16 percent of Maine’s population is veterans – more than 150,000 people – and that doesn’t include those who are now serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations around the world, he said.
Michaud spoke of the need for a greater number of services and outpatient clinic sites after the dedication of the Veteran’s Administration’s Community-Based Outpatient Clinic in Rumford.
When VA medical services began in Rumford in 1998, those services were provided by a mobile medical bus that visited the area three times a week. By 1999, a clinic was established on Lincoln Avenue. Then, earlier this year, the clinic moved up the hill to the Rumford Medical Building on Franklin Street, where 4,500 square feet of space is used to serve veterans, said Jack Sims Jr., Togus VA Medical Center director. That is double the space at the Lincoln Avenue site.
In Maine, with its five outpatient clinics, the number of veterans served at the clinics has jumped from 19,000 to 36,000. In Rumford, the number began with a few hundred, and is now at 2,300. The Rumford clinic serves most of western Maine.
Penelope Graham, coordinator of the state’s five clinics, said Rumford’s number is rising about 2 percent each month. That growth is caused by an increasing number of veterans from all wars seeking services, sometimes because they are learning that such services are available. Some are recent veterans of the Iraq war. Sims said that statewide, nearly 600 Iraq war veterans have sought services so far.
Along with primary care medical services provided five days a week, mental health services are now available one day a week and will soon be doubled. In an effort to reach even more veterans, Rumford’s clinic will begin providing home-based primary care to those who cannot physically come to the site sometime next year, said Graham.
“Expansions are needed because Maine is geographically diverse,” said Dr. Kevin Kruse, primary service manager at Togus.
It’s that geographic diversity that Michaud, and others on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, want to address in rural states.
He and Rep. Henry Brown, R-South Carolina, are sponsoring a Veterans’ Affairs health subcommittee hearing on Monday at Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor to receive input on the needs of rural veterans.
He believes there has never been a Veterans’ Affairs hearing on health issues in Maine.
“We’ve got to take care of our veterans nationwide,” he said.
One of the added services, if funding can be found, would be transportation of veterans to clinics.
“I’d push for a pilot project in Maine,” he said.
Funding for possibly adding several new outpatient clinics would come from a variety of sources, said Michaud’s press secretary, Monica Castellanos. That could mean submission of a separate bill requesting more funding for veterans’ health, or going after more money in the president’s budget.
Michaud is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
About 60 people attended Wednesday’s dedication.
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