Veterans nursing home to fill up by April

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003 | 9:42 a.m.

The Nevada Veterans Nursing Home in Boulder City should have 90 residents by the end of the week, and is on pace to be full by April 1, the home administrator said Monday.

A spokeswoman for the home said last month that the home could have 120 residents by mid-September. Home Administrator Gary Bermeosolo said Monday that number was wrong then, but other projected move-in dates given last month were still correct.

Bermeosolo told the state Veterans' Services Commission that the home is still on schedule to open its third and final 60-bed wing in early December.

The home will have 180 patient beds when completed. Six of those beds will be reserved for patients who need to be kept in isolation to prevent the spread of illness at the home, which means that, when full, the home will have 174 residents, Bermeosolo said.

The home, the only one of its kind for veterans in Nevada, opened in August 2003, a year behind schedule. The home also cost about $1 million more than expected and had three top administrators in its first year.

Despite the problems, many veterans are glad the home seems to be progressing, and providing needed long-term care for veterans.

To further address the veteran population's growing need for nursing home beds, the Veterans Affairs Department is considering building a 120-bed nursing home as part of a proposed new VA clinic and hospital campus for the Las Vegas Valley.

The veterans commission also was told Monday that the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City has space to continue new burials for the next 20 to 25 years.

Through the end of August, 14,642 veterans have been buried in the 12-year-old cemetery, Brad Benson said. Benson is vice chairman of the cemetery committee.

The cemetery covers about 100 acres, and roughly 80 acres of it are still empty, he said.