The Jamestown Sun
The new Veterans Affairs Outreach Clinic that opened March 12 in Jamestown Hospital is proving to be as busy as anticipated, having already increased services from two to three days a week in April.
"The feedback I'm getting from people is that they're extremely pleased with the services they are getting," said Warren Tobin, veterans service officer for Stutsman County.
Tobin said he's heard a lot of good things and no complaints about the clinic. Transferring patients' primary care from Fargo to Jamestown has been an easy process, with patients generally able to get appointments in Jamestown within a week.
Peggy Wheelden, public affairs representative for the Fargo VA Medical Center, said she is also receiving a lot of positive feedback from veterans who are happy the clinic is in Jamestown and enjoy not having to drive to Fargo.
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While he hasn't heard any complaints from veterans about the new clinic, Tobin said patients have called asking if they should switch their primary care from Fargo to Jamestown. He said they won't save many trips to Fargo if they need a lot of specialty care, like orthopedics, which isn't provided locally. In that case, veterans might want to keep their primary care appointments in Fargo along with their specialty care.
So far Tobin said more than 250 veterans have registered at the Jamestown clinic, and he estimates approximately 700 veterans live in Stutsman County.
"You would expect most of them would want to swap over to the Jamestown clinic," he said.
Wheelden said the VA would be happy to serve all veterans and would increase the number of days the clinic is open if needed. She said the VA would especially like to see the young veterans who served in Iraq register for services.
"We want the workload," she said. "We want veterans to come in and be seen."
The VA clinic in Jamestown is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday on the main floor of Jamestown Hospital.
