To the editor:<\/p>\n
I sent the following letter to Cape Coral City Council:<\/p>\n
TO: City of Cape Coral Mayor and Councilmembers,<\/p>\n
My purpose with this email letter is to trigger\u00a0a serious discussion and\u00a0encourage strong support by our military veterans, citizens, public employees, and publicly elected officials, to take all appropriate actions needed to expand and build\u00a0a\u00a0VA Hospital\/Medical Center in Cape Coral, serving all of Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n
WHY\u00a0Cape Coral ?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because\u00a0National data shows that Cape Coral is growing FAST and will soon be a VERY LARGE CITY, in a County where every governmental entity is trying to keep up with infrastructure needs (including healthcare).\u00a0Plus,\u00a0Because\u00a0the\u00a0Lee County VA Healthcare Center in Cape Coral\u00a0appears to have enough vacant land around it to easily accommodate expansion and new construction to become a VA Hospital\/Medical Center,\u00a0BEFORE that changes, officials need\u00a0to\u00a0identify and take appropriate actions to preclude that land from being committed to other uses. <\/p>\n
WHY NOW ?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because\u00a0Cape Coral has the\u00a0Lee County VA Healthcare Center\u00a0but it does not have hospital beds, emergency services, nor all specialties\u00a0and\u00a0it appears it is already\u00a0not fully meeting the needs of SWFL Veterans,\u00a0as evidenced by the lead times waiting for some services. Already, 35%\u00a0of Veterans say they usually\u00a0cannot\u00a0get an appointment for urgent needs when they need it.*\u00a0Just to keep up requires focused forecasting and planning with both public and private support to achieve appropriate and necessary approvals and funding.<\/p>\n
ALSO,\u00a0Because\u00a0knowing that moving to the next level of VA healthcare facilities and services will require specific\u00a0criteria be met, and will require\u00a0City, County, State, and the Federal government to become involved,\u00a0getting\u00a0approval and funding for expansion and building\u00a0a\u00a0VA Hospital\/Medical Center\u00a0in Cape Coral should be publicly established as a goal and a top priority\u00a0NOW.<\/p>\n
And,\u00a0Because\u00a0knowing that\u00a0timing is important, hopefully we will be able to take advantage of the fact that\u00a0in JAN 2026, the\u00a0Secretary of Veterans Affairs announced\u00a0the largest reorganization of the\u00a0Veterans Health Administration (VHA) since the 1990s, advising that the VA plans to restructure VHA\u2019s administration, realign staff and resources and\u00a0invest in medical facilities.\u00a0Initial funding\u00a0will focus on upgrading current facilities,\u00a0but\u00a0opening new facilities\u00a0and investing in direct care capabilities for veterans who need unique care that only the VA can provide\u00a0is also being planned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a number of locations around the country, one can see\u00a0the synergy in having a VA Hospital\/Medical Center and a Local Hospital either co-located, or nearby each other, where by their proximity, they are able to expand available health care services to the communities they serve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An influx of VHA dollars could provide additional synergy, considering that\u00a0existing healthcare system providers might benefit from providing some services under contract,\u00a0since under\u00a0the Community Care Program, the VA has already issued a call for contract proposals to provide medical services with\u00a0agreements worth nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years.\u00a0This information appears in\u00a0links 1 and 2 below.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is a significant and growing retired military population (myself included) in Cape Coral and SWFL, and I would\u00a0expect all\u00a0of the 56,000 veterans, just in Lee County, and military association members would actively provide\u00a0their strong support for a new VA Hospital\/Medical Center in Cape Coral.\u00a0Personally, I am a resident of Cape Coral\u00a0District 5, Lee County District 1, Florida State Senate District 33, Florida State House District 79, and US House of Representatives District 19.<\/p>\n
I am submitting this request on behalf of myself; the many Veterans who reside in Southwest Florida, who I am sure would be very thankful and would benefit healthwise; and on behalf of all citizens of Lee County, and surrounding counties, all of whom would benefit healthwise and economically with\u00a0a full service VA Hospital\/Medical Center in Cape Coral.<\/p>\n
Earl H. Morgan Jr. USAF Retired<\/p>\n
Cape Coral<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: I sent the following letter to Cape Coral City Council: TO: City of Cape Coral…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-189551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}