CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Cape Coral City Council is voting to formally support an expansion of the Veterans Affairs Clinic that would include a full-service veterans hospital and a veterans home campus for independent, assisted, full nursing and memory care.<\/p>\n
The vote also allowed city administration to work with the legislature and other organizations to provide financial support for the expansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We have seen an increased number of veterans coming in, especially the ones that qualify for the VFW. They all need help, but they keep saying the same thing that they need medical services,” said Ben Santana, an Iraq War veteran.<\/p>\n
Santana\u00a0has a spinal cord injury due to trauma and requires medical treatment beyond what the Cape Coral VA Clinic can offer.<\/p>\n
“Community care takes so long for us to get approved because we need to get approval from the VA first. Then it takes a couple of months so we could get community care, and then by that time, I mean, our situation is just worse and worse,” Santana said.<\/p>\n
John Thompson did three tours in Iraq and one tour in Afghanistan. When he was having back problems, it took six months to get an MRI at a community hospital.<\/p>\n
“It is very frustrating sometimes, especially if you’re actually sick and you know you need recruitment right away,” Thompson said.<\/p>\n
The wait time for the VA hospital in Tampa wasn’t much better.<\/p>\n
“Even if I went two hours driving up, it would still have been like three a three to four month wait,” Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Alan White, a veteran working with the committee, said more than 114,000 veterans live in Southwest Florida, with about 61,000 in Lee County alone.\u00a0The Cape Coral clinic currently handles only outpatient services\u00a0requiring veterans who need specialized care for combat-related injuries to turn to community hospitals or face a two hour commute to Tampa Bay for treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“A majority of these [veterans] have some serious issues: traumatic brain injury, and PTSD, Agent Orange, and also burn-related, burn pit-related, combat-related injuries, and unique, specific to VA,” said White. “They couldn’t get that treatment here.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The grassroots committee, formed in May, is called the Cape Coral VA Clinic Expansion to a Full Service Hospital are pushing for the expansion.<\/p>\n
“Getting them on board is not only symbolic, but it will be necessary to help get this hospital permitted and help us get it built,” said White. “That’s why it’s very important that we start with Cape Coral.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
White said recent VA data shows over the course of\u00a0three fiscal years, there were more than 120,000 consultations requiring veterans to travel to Tampa Bay, over 173,000 referrals to community care, more than 851,000 claims and $588.1 million spent on community care.\u00a0
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White is\u00a0encouraging veterans to enroll in VA healthcare at va.gov<\/a>. Enrollment is quick and requires uploading a DD Form 214 discharge document.\u00a0
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“If you’re a veteran and if you’re not registered, go online, take five to 10 minutes, fill out the online form, and get registered, get enrolled with the VA healthcare system,” White said.\u00a0
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The committee plans to expand its resolution effort throughout Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry, and Glades Counties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Cape Coral City Council is voting to formally support an expansion of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,5219,211,210,170232,170229,170228,28,7931,17503,164495,356,23767,104587,170230,170231],"class_list":["post-434285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-city-council","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-cape-coral-va-clinic","tag-combat-related-injuries","tag-doctors-hospital","tag-florida","tag-healthcare","tag-healthcare-system","tag-john-thompson","tag-lee-county","tag-ptsd","tag-traumatic-brain-injury","tag-va-hospital","tag-veterans-affairs-clinic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434285","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=434285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}