I
107TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 5610
To authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to construct a comprehensive
veterans medical center in southern Nevada that would include a full
service hospital, an outpatient clinic, and a long-term care nursing home
facility.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OCTOBER 10, 2002
Ms. BERKLEY introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
A BILL
To authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to construct
a comprehensive veterans medical center in southern Ne-
vada that would include a full service hospital, an out-
patient clinic, and a long-term care nursing home facility.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Southern Nevada Vet-
erans Medical Center Act of 2002’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Southern Nevada is one of the few regions
in the country with a growing veterans population.
(2) The Department of Veterans Affairs built
the Addeliar G. Guy III Ambulatory Care Clinic in
1997 to serve as the primary health care clinic for
southern Nevada.
(3) The Department of Veterans Affairs has re-
cently predicted that the number of annual visits by
veterans to their primary health care clinic would
rise from 198,608 in 1998 to 524,804 by 2010.
(4) The Department of Veterans Affairs has
had to abandon that clinic after finding substantial
structural defects in the building that houses the
clinic. The clinic is no longer structurally safe.
(5) The Department of Veterans Affairs is pro-
posing to relocate its surgical specialty, primary
care, medical specialty care, and mental health clin-
ics to nine separate geographic sites throughout
southern Nevada.
(6) Southern Nevada’s veterans have been
forced to travel to veterans hospitals located in Cali-
fornia many hours away for essential hospital serv-
ices. The Department of Veterans Affairs issued
more than 1,500 referrals to southern California for
fiscal year 2002. Requiring veterans to travel great
distances for surgical and other procedures rep-
resents an unacceptable burden on southern Ne-
vada’s veterans and their family support base.
(7) Southern Nevada’s veterans are facing a
health care crisis. They have a fragmented clinic, no
Federal long-term care or nursing home facility, and
no full service hospital in southern Nevada.
SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION OF SOUTHERN NEVADA VETERANS
MEDICAL CENTER FOR PATIENT CARE.
(a) The Secretary of Veterans Affairs is authorized
to carry out the construction of a major medical facility
project in southern Nevada. The project shall consist of
a new medical center consisting of a full service patient
care hospital, an outpatient clinic, and a comprehensive
long-term care nursing home facility.
(b) The Secretary is encouraged to co-locate the Vet-
erans Affairs regional office at the site of the new medical
center in order to provide services for veterans at a com-
mon site.
SEC. 4. PARTNERSHIPS.
The Secretary of Veterans Affairs is encouraged to
seek out partnerships with State and local government en-
tities for the purpose of sharing the cost of planning, land
acquisition, and construction, and the cost of maintaining,
the center referred to in section 3.
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