Update: Bill signed, $36M approved for new Tri-Cities VA Medical Center with more services

Update Aug. 10, 2022: President Biden has signed the Honoring our PACT Act, which includes $36 million for an expanded Veteran Affairs clinic in the Tri-Cities area.

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Expanded Veteran Affairs medical care could be coming to the Tri-Cities.

The U.S. Senate has approved $36 million to lease a new and larger Veteran Affairs clinic in the Tri-Cities.

The money was added to the bill by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who said additional services in the Tri-Cities would be a “huge game changer,” allowing veterans to access services closer to home.

The new clinic space would allow greater access in the Tri-Cities area to primary, specialty and mental health care, according to Murray’s staff.

It also will create jobs for more VA staff.

She’d heard about the need for better services in the Tri-Cities from veterans, including Tri-Cities veteran Erin Mulka.

“It’s critical to emphasize, especially for working women veterans, that it’s challenging to access services due to conflicts the the traditional business day,” she told Murray in November 2021.

Now the VA offers some clinic serves at the Federal Building on Jadwin Avenue in Richland.

“I have visited and met with VA staff in every part of Washington state, the doctors and nurses and everyone else working at or VA medical centers really care about this work and their mission, but they need us here in Congress to care just as much, and fight just as hard for their patients — our veterans,” Murray said.

The money to leave new VA clinic space was included in the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Pact Act of 2022, which passed the Senate 84-14.

The bill also would expand the toxic-exposure coverage for post-9/11 veterans and creates a framework for coverage going forward.

Next the Senate legislation will go to conference with the Honoring our Pact Act of 2021 passed by the House and then the final version of the bill will be sent to President Biden to be signed into law.

▪ In another possible change in veteran’s care in Eastern Washington, the Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission has received a recommendation from the administration to move the Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program from the Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center in Walla Walla to Spokane.

The program, with 31 beds available in Walla Walla, offers addiction treatment, including for drugs and alcohol.

No decision on the change has been made and if the change does go forward it would take some time to establish services in Spokane.

This story was originally published June 17, 2022 at 12:56 PM.