Olympic Medical Center seeks veterans” help in setting up virtual clinic on Peninsula
Published 12:01 am Thursday, February 2, 2006
PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center will seek support from Clallam County veterans to bring a Department of Veterans Affairs health-care facility to Port Angeles.
Currently, veterans who need medical treatment must travel to Seattle.
A Disabled American Veterans’ van transports an average of 32 veterans weekly to the VA Medical Center in Seattle for appointments.
A VA clinic in Bremerton has closed its doors to out-of-towners.
A VA clinic on the North Olympic Peninsula would take three to four years to work its way through the bureaucracy, said medical center CEO Mike Glenn.
The Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area has several clinics under contract to the VA, but getting such a center on the sparsely populated Peninsula faces longer odds, he said.
Glenn has proposed a “virtual VA clinic” that would use the medical center and other health-care providers around town.
He and other officials have pitched the idea to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Shoreline.
