(GEORGETOWN, Del.)- A groundbreaking moment in Georgetown, marked the beginning of construction for the new Sussex County VA Outpatient Clinic.
This location will service more veteran patients. The plan is to have improved waiting areas, more exam rooms, and additional space for group clinics, support groups, and expanded telehealth services.
The need for this facility is strong as the Vet population skyrockets.
"For our veterans we've had a 27% increase in the number of vets we've served in the last five years but we've had a 71% increase in the number of visits," said Robin Aube-Warren, Director of the Medical Center.
Aube-Warren said the local vets have outgrown the current outpatient facility in Georgetown.
Thomas Malin, a vet at the Georgetown facility on Friday, hopes the new facility means less of a wait time.
"There is a wait time because all the staff here are not full time or if they are full time they work at other places and other outreach centers," Malin said.
U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D) said on Friday at the groundbreaking ceremony that while more veterans are making the move to Sussex County, healthcare professionals are not:
"The challenge for medical care, especially in southern Delaware is being able to hire and maintain doctors and nurses- that's one of the real challenges."
Right now many of the healthcare opportunists for Vets are upstate at the VA hospital in Wilmington. This new facility excites, Gary Morris, because it means less time on the road.
"The routine services that you would normally have to go all the way to Wilmington for you can now have done locally, x-rays, blood work, things of that nature," Morris explained.
Jake Spruance, Director of Facilities, said the new Sussex County VA clinic will be sate of the art and almost twice the size of the current Georgetown facility:
"The patient will come into one corridor, they'll be shown to one room, a nurse will do a check in and then a doctor will come in from the other side and basically we're bringing the services to the patient versus the patient having to travel around."
Spruance said the plan is to have Vets utilizing the new clinic by the end of 2016.
