TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — After breaking ground on a $40 million VA clinic in Terre Haute in 2020, officials say they hope to see their first patients in November of this year.
“We’ll accept the building in August,” project manager Julie Webb of Veteran Health Indiana said. “That means it’ll be up and ready for us to occupy. Then we’ll start moving in everything it takes to run a clinic.”
Webb said the clinic will employee approximately 110 employees once it is fully operational. In the meantime, the clinic is already helping the local economy.
“What’s interesting is this is kind of an Indiana project,” Webb explained. “Most of the subcontractors are actually from this region, which is kind of unusual.”
WATCH: MyWabashValley.com gets a sneak peak at the new Terre Haute VA Clinic
She noted that the construction company overseeing the project is out of Alabama; however, they partnered with several area companies to use local labor as well as local products.
“So, it’s been a very good economic boost for the Terre Haute community,” Webb said.
Once open, the clinic will provide several services to area veterans.
“We’ll be expanding our primary care and mental health services,” Webb noted. “But we’ll also be offering optometry, audiology, more physical therapy; we’ll have a dispensing pharmacy here, which are all great enhancements for veterans. We also have space so that in the future, if we see demand, we can maybe rotate some specialties like cardiology and others.”
With all of the new services to be offered at the Terre Haute facility, area veterans like Mike Egy will no longer have to travel long distances for treatment.
Egy has been receiving treatment from the VA since 2000.
“If I have anything major that has to be done, I have to travel to Indianapolis for any outpatient type of resources,” Egy explained. “The new VA clinic here will be providing those resources.
Egy said the new clinic will save him and others a great deal of travel time, and will make it easier to make it to appointments.
“It fills my heart with joy knowing that my fellow brother and sister veterans can come and not have to worry about getting a ride or depending on someone else to drive them to Indianapolis or Danville,” he said. “They can now take a cab and get there in a relatively short time at a very cheap cost.”
