LEWISTON – Local veterans’ trips to see a doctor could get a lot shorter.

A bill before Congress may force the Veterans Administration to plan for a new outpatient health clinic in Lewiston-Auburn.

The measure, titled the Veterans Affairs Medical Facility Authorization Act, would require the VA to examine the costs of offering primary and mental health care here and in two other Maine towns, Houlton and Dover-Foxcroft.

Such a clinic is desperately needed, said Jerry DeWitt, a Lewiston veteran who has been heading up a two-year-long effort.

“It’s what we’ve been waiting for,” DeWitt said.

Getting to the VA hospital at Togus, now closest place for local veterans to meet with their doctors or obtain prescriptions, is a chore for many, he said. Nonprofit groups such as the Disabled American Veterans, which operates shuttles to Togus, are having trouble getting enough drivers to meet demand.

And living in Maine’s second-largest urban area, local veterans shouldn’t have to make the trip as often.

It’s a point echoed by Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, one of three co-sponsors of the bill and a ranking member of the health subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

There are too many veterans in Lewiston-Auburn for the cities to be ignored, said a legislative aide to Michaud, Michael Brownlie.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 14.5 percent of Maine’s 1.3 million people are veterans, the third highest percentage of any state.

At least 11,000 veterans live in the Lewiston-Auburn area, DeWitt said.

They deserve easier access to care, he said.

A new facility, classified by the VA as a “community-based outpatient clinic,” would offer primary care for someone who could be treated in a doctor’s office. Specialty care or treatment requiring a hospital setting would still be referred to Togus.

Five such clinics are in service in Saco, Bangor, Calais, Caribou and Rumford.

VA leaders announced plans in 2004 for another clinic, this time aimed at northern Cumberland County, perhaps in Freeport or Brunswick.

DeWitt and other veterans leaders objected to the plan.

Together, they collected more than 1,000 signatures, including those of the leaders of all 14 Lewiston-Auburn veterans groups. They asked that the clinic be placed here instead.

The focus has shifted.

At Togus, workers have begun the first stages of planning for a clinic in Lewiston, even before Congress passes the bill.

“You plan for it, whether the money is there or not,” said James Doherty, spokesman for the VA hospital at Togus.