LEWISTON — As Ryan Lilly, deputy director of Maine’s Veterans Affairs system, walked the winding halls and empty spaces of Lewiston’s sprawling new clinic Thursday, a dozen veterans followed.

The VA moved into the 30,000-square-foot building in February and began seeing patients right away.

But most of the equipment, doctors and related staff will arrive over the next 18  months, Lilly said. When the ramp-up is complete, the clinic hopes to serve a patient list that numbers 5,000 and could grow to more than 6,000.

“I think this will, eventually, be the largest clinic, in terms of patients in Maine,” he said.

Lilly’s visit followed weeks of controversy over specialties at the Lewiston clinic. Originally, the facility was slated to offer vision and hearing care along with urology, podiatry and radiology.

However, Lilly said last month that several planned specialties, including optometry and audiology, would not be offered in Lewiston, after all. Many local veterans felt that the VA was breaking a promise it made when it decided to fund the clinic.

Local lawmakers and members of Maine’s congressional delegation, led by Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, lobbied for the specialties’ return.

“Cooler heads prevailed and many of those services will be back,” Lilly said. Cardiology, urology, hearing, vision care and radiology are all planned, he said. In some cases, such as with radiology, the equipment has already been ordered from vendors. In other cases, the VA is working to free up personnel.

Plans call for a full-time psychiatrist to be based at the clinic. The clinic is also slated to be a test center for something the VA calls “tele-health,” in which people at the clinic consult with physicians via an Internet video hook-up.

Eventually, the Lewiston center is expected to host a rotating group of personnel who will train here and expand tele-health services to other communities, Lilly said.

Veteran Arthur Roy of Lewiston watched and listened.

He said he plans to fight for face-to-face mental health services.

“If you’ve got a real problem, you don’t want to talk to a TV,” Roy said. “How can you relate to a TV set?”

But Roy, one of the first veterans treated at the clinic, was impressed with the building and its personnel.

“They’re nice here,” he said. “They’re so polite. They treat you good. I love my doctor.”

He said he is eager to see the many empty offices filled with health care workers.

“I’ve never seen anything as good,” Roy said. “But they just don’t have it manned.”

Veteran Maurice Dutil of Lewiston also raved about what he saw. For most veterans in the Lewiston-Auburn area, it will save the roughly 45-minute drive to the VA Hospital at Togus.

“It’s about a quarter of a mile from my house,” Dutil said. “It is a big plus.”

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