Lake Baldwin VA Clinic to stay open!

This is the monument right across the street from Lake Baldwin VA.

This is what we've been waiting for since the groundbreaking October 2008 when I was handed a shovel to remember the day........No need to say more.

In 'victory,' Lake Baldwin VA clinic will stay open
Orlando Sentinel
By Marni Jameson
July 29, 2014

After being threatened with a closure that would have inconvenienced thousands of area veterans, the Lake Baldwin VA Outpatient Clinic will remain open, U.S. Rep. John Mica announced Friday.

"The Baldwin Park Clinic will remain open and the medical facilities there will continue to be used to serve our veterans," Mica said at a news conference. "This is a great victory for our veterans."

Mica, R-Winter Park, said he received the news in a letter from acting U.S. Secretary for Veterans Affairs Sloan Gibson.

Jerry Pierce, veteran and former chairman of the Central Florida Veterans Memorial Park Foundation, said he was "ecstatic" to learn the news.

"We have 2,600 veterans visiting that clinic every day. And that number is rising," Pierce said. "We needed it to stay open. Our congressional leaders worked really hard for this."

The long-awaited Orlando VA Medical Center in Lake Nona is expected to start seeing patients in summer 2015. VA officials considered closing the Baldwin Park clinic and transitioning its outpatient medical services to Lake Nona. That would have meant a long drive for many veterans seeking care.

However, a VA analysis found that the medical needs of the veteran population were growing and that the "current workload already exceeds the projected workload" that was projected for 2023, according to Gibson's letter.

The VA "substantiated that we have the veteran population through 2023 and beyond to support both the new Lake Nona VA Hospital and the Baldwin Park Clinic," said Mica, who is among those who have strongly advocated for keeping the Lake Baldwin VA facility open.
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