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Officials at the
Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany say they’ve received three
proposals to run an outpatient clinic that would serve veterans in
the Saranac Lake-Lake Placid area.
Peter Potter,
spokesman for the Stratton VA Medical Center, which oversees the VA
clinics, said a request was submitted for proposals to provide
services in the Saranac Lake region and the Lake Placid area as well
as serve Elizabethtown, where a current VA clinic is located.
Three proposals have
been received and they’re now being reviewed, Potter said.
“That’s where we’re at right now,” he said. “They’re going through
the process of going through these proposals and seeing who could
provide what and where.”
The usual timeline
for making a decision is about 60 days, Potter said. The deadline
for submitting proposals was May 15.
Potter said extra
consideration is being given to proposals that have spelled out ways
to provide service both in the Saranac Lake-Lake Placid region, and
the Elizabethtown area.
Officials at
Elizabethtown Community Hospital told the Plattsburgh
Press-Republican that they’ve submitted plans to run a
hospital-based clinic in Elizabethtown along with a satellite clinic
in Wilmington that would serve veterans in Lake Placid and Saranac
Lake.
Potter acknowledged
that Elizabethtown Community Hospital is one of the three
organizations that responded to the request for proposals. He
declined to reveal who has submitted the other two proposals.
Adirondack Medical
Center spokesman Joe Riccio says the hospital did not submit any
plans for a clinic to the VA.
VA officials have
considered closing the existing clinic in Elizabethtown because of
staffing issues. Potter said they need to be able to keep a
full-time physician on staff or at least a physician’s assistant.
The possibility of
relocating the community-based outpatient clinic to Saranac Lake or
Lake Placid is being considered, Potter said.
“There is certainly a
possibility,” Potter said, citing the higher density of veterans in
the area. (news5) “There’s a large portion of veteran’s there that
can be served. It’d be nice to have a clinic in every town. What
we try to do is look at the radiuses. With Malone and Plattsburgh
and Glens Falls, this does make a nice location with regards to
placing it an area that provides a really good coverage area.
Serving that Tri-Lakes area would be very nice.”
If the VA clinic
stays in Elizabethtown or is re-located somewhere else, the effort
to open a separate clinic in the Lake Placid-Saranac Lake area
becomes much more difficult.
Potter said
Congressional approval would be required open an additional clinic.
-Chris Knight,
6-15-09 |