Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today said he was pleased to learn that the Department of Veterans Affairs is taking the first step necessary to ensure that Grant County veterans have adequate access to health care services.

Silver City's current VA clinic is too small and as result is limited in what additional services it can offer.  To get into a better facility, the VA will put out a request for proposal this week for potential sites to house the city's VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic.  The VA is hoping to award a lease for the facility by September 30, 2010 and expects to open the new clinic by April 2011.

"While the Silver City VA clinic has been on a list for expansion for several years already, the process has been slow moving forward.  I am pleased to learn that the VA is finally taking action to move the facility to an improved location," Bingaman said.

Bingaman has been instrumental in bringing the need to improve New Mexico's VA clinics to the attention of the White House. In a meeting with VA officials late last year, Bingaman said many of the state's VA clinic facilities are too small and need to be upgraded, and chided the VA for taking too long to find a new, more suitable spaces.