Funding starts rolling for VA hospital

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Plans to bring a new veterans medical complex to North Las Vegas are rolling now that Congress has approved the land deal as part of the $388 billion omnibus spending bill lawmakers approved Saturday.

The legislation included a provision that transferred 147 acres near the Las Vegas beltway and Pecos Road from the Bureau of Land Management to the Veterans Affairs Department.

Nevada's five lawmakers in Congress spent several years publicly and privately lobbying the department for a new medical campus to serve the state's growing veterans population.

"The sooner we get the land, the sooner we can break ground and begin construction," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee. The project would be in her district.

Groundbreaking is planned for 2006 with possible completion in 2009. The project had already been allotted $25 million in federal planning money. A joint venture of RTKL Associates Inc., with offices nationwide, and Las Vegas-based JMA Architecture Studios were named project planners in April.

Plans for the project include a 90-bed hospital, a 120-bed nursing home and an outpatient clinic. The complex is desperately needed since the Addeliar Guy Ambulatory Care Center on Vegas Drive closed last year, Nevada officials said.

Nevada has one of the fastest-growing populations of veterans among the states, according to Veterans Affairs Department statistics. Veterans are now roughly 16 percent of the state's adult population. The veterans population has risen 30 percent since 1990.

The project is a "thank-you" to all veterans and an investment in those now serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, Berkley said.

"Our veterans need a single, convenient, accessible campus where they can receive high-quality health care," Berkley said.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., did not support the overall spending bill because it included money for Yucca Mountain, but he said he strongly supports the VA complex and called it long overdue. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., noted that passage of the hospital legislation fittingly fell about a week after Veterans Day.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., called approval of the medical center "a great relief and a tremendous victory." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, "It is tremendously important that we follow through on the promises we made our veterans."