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NEWS
VA in $20M 'expansion mode'
A 15,000-square-foot former nurses dormitory is the largest of several renovation projects to create a mental health complex on the campus of the Huntington VA Medical Center. The nearly $5 million renovation project is scheduled to be complete by fall 2010.
Purchase this photoHUNTINGTON -- The Huntington VA Medical Center is in the midst of more than $20 million in projects that ultimately will establish a mental health complex, renovate existing departments and create jobs.
"We're definitely in an expansion, building mode right now," said Edward H. Seiler, director of the Huntington VA Medical Center.
Part of that work will be funded by nearly $5 million from the Omnibus Appropriations Act of fiscal year 2009. Word of that money came Tuesday.
"This funding will allow for the start of construction of a mental health complex on the VAMC campus, which is exactly the type of veteran's health care facility that we need to build to provide the necessary services to support our veterans," said U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), in a press release.
Seiler said the 15,000-square-foot, three-story building would likely be complete by fall 2010 and would house most of the center's outpatient mental health clinics, which are now located in the adjacent, main hospital.
He said the current project is the largest of several that will create a mental health campus on the VA grounds. The building was previously a nurses dormitory when the hospital was built in 1932 and was used as a research building for many years afterward.
"It's basically been unused for a number of years except for storage," he said.
He said the building will be gutted and renovated to accommodate mental health services.
As the medical center expands, Seiler said the VA continues to create jobs in the Huntington area.
"In the last year and a half we've increased staffing at the hospital by about 150 employees," he said.
The number of full-time employees at the medical center was listed as about 1,030 in the spring.
Besides the renovations to the former nurses dormitory, projects are also in the works for three other mental health buildings at the VA. Seiler estimated construction would begin in 30 to 45 days on a building now occupied by offices but will house the psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery day treatment center. That project will cost just over $2 million, he said.
Around the first of January, Seiler expects work to begin on a third building, which will be renovated to house a 20-bed residential rehabilitation program for veterans with post traumatic stress and substance use disorders. He said that project costs around $4.2 million.
The relocation of many mental health services will free up some much-needed room in the main hospital, Seiler said. When the new spaces are complete, programs such as the outpatient mental health clinics will move. VA staff are now in the process of deciding how they will use the new space. One option, Seiler said, is to pursue having an inpatient acute psychiatry unit. Currently, patients who need such services are transferred to facilities, such as those in Lexington, Ky., or Chillicothe, Ohio.
"We would like to be able to take care of those patients here in Huntington," Seiler said.
The Huntington VA also has five other projects in the works thanks to more than $6 million in stimulus funding. Those include steam distribution system upgrades ($1.5 million), refurbishing the outpatient waiting area ($250,000), updating the heating, ventilating and air conditioning system ($4 million), updating inpatient wards ($250,000), and renovating the physical medicine and rehabilitation and prosthetic departments ($600,000).
The VA also is looking forward to renovating two of its inpatient medical surgical wards that currently have two four-bed bedrooms, Seiler said. Those are expected to be rebuilt so every patient bedroom is private or has two beds in the next few months.
Approximately 30,000 patients currently receive care from the Huntington VA Medical Center, and about 2,000 of those are Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
The Huntington VA is located at 1540 Spring Valley Drive.
