Care closer to home

By Randolph T. Holhut
The Commons

BRATTLEBORO — Ask local veterans about the quality of health care they get from the Veterans Administration, and they usually have good things to say.

Ask them what they don’t like, and they’ll say driving more than an hour to the VA medical center at White River Junction to get that care.

Now, those long trips up Interstate 91 will be greatly reduced, with the opening the VA’s new Community Based Outpatient Clinic in the Exit 1 Industrial Park.

The Brattleboro clinic serves as a satellite of the VA’s White River Junction facility. It provides primary care, mental health, electrocardiograms, laboratory tests and preventive services, all in one location near the highway.

“We are extremely pleased to be able to serve the veterans in the Brattleboro area. It’s something that we looked forward to for the last two years,”said Andrew LaCasse, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “We knew this area needed a clinic like this, and it has been a long time in coming.”

The clinic, which has been open to outpatients since June 4, had its official grand opening with a ceremony on June 26.

Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., who has been fighting for expanded health care for veterans for several years, told those in attendance at the ceremony that bringing a VA clinic to Brattleboro has been one of the most personally satisfying efforts of his congressional career.

“There is no way we can thank or appreciate enough our veterans,” said Sanders. “Today is about saying to our veterans that the promises we made to them will be kept, that they will have access to the best health care in the country.”

The Brattleboro CBOC now joins similar facilities in Bennington, Colchester and Rutland. Those three facilities had a combined total of more than 33,000 patient visits last year.

Sanders said the VA is working with the Vermont congressional delegation to put a fifth CBOC in the Northeast Kingdom, most likely in the Newport area.

New life for building

The building itself, located at 71 GSP Drive, is owned by Gordon and Jean Bristol of Williamsville. It was built in 1989 and had been previously used as a medical office.

“We heard the VA was looking for sites, and we thought this was a good way to take what was a building that aged well but had become a little tired, and give it a new life,” said Gordon Bristol.

In renovating the building for the VA, the Bristols wanted to make the building as green as possible.

From energy-efficient lighting, to plumbing fixtures that use 50 percent less water, to paint and carpeting that contain no volatile organic compounds, the Bristols say the new VA clinic is one of the healthiest and most sustainable medical offices in the state.

“We wanted the building to be a place of healing, as well as a place where people can work and visit and be at their best,” said Gordon Bristol. “We think this is a unique building, and making it that way was something we really wanted to do for the veterans.”

Dr. Eric Pofcher is the primary care physician at the clinic. He previously was affiliated with Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

“I was in private practice for eight years, and discovered I was not that good at managing my own practice,” he said. “I appreciate that the VA knows the value of primary care, and the quality of the care that they deliver definitely brought me here.”

He said several of his patients at BMH followed him to the Brattleboro CBOC. “They are really happy to see this. Not driving to White River is a plus for them,” he said.

Sharon Levenson, a primary care nurse at the clinic, said she has seen a lot of walk-in traffic since the clinic opened its doors. “The more that people hear about us, the more patients we’re seeing,” she said.

The Brattleboro CBOC is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays expect Tuesday, when the clinic is open from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Its telephone number is 802-251-2200.