New Lakeland VA Clinic Increases Access to Care for Nearly 49,000
by PAUL CATALA
For five years, Jeffrey Mann of Bartow has had to drive about 45 miles each way to Tampa for his medical needs.
But now, Mann only has to drive about 11 miles to see his doctors and nurses and get medical treatments.
Lakeland’s new VA Clinic off Lakeland Highlands Road is making healthcare services and treatment more readily accessible for approximately 49,000 military veterans in the greater Polk County area. That makes it easier for patients like Mann to stay on top of their medical and fitness needs.
Mann, 61, served in California, Germany, and Lakeland with the U.S. Army from 1980 to 1983 and the Florida National Guard from 1983 to 1986.
Mann says for the past five years he’s had to travel to the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa two to three times per year to get CT scans for his military-related injuries.
“Any time you have an urgent-care situation, CT scans, and X-rays, you have to go over there,” he says. “Anything out of the basic ‘see your doctor,’ you have to drive out to Haley. We were overjoyed when this opened.”
The Lakeland VA Clinic opened its mental health services May 27 and primary care and other services opened June 28. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held July 26 after clinic staff began moving into the new clinic off Lakeland Highlands Road from May to June in phases.
According to information provided by Rachelle Smith, public affairs specialist with James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, the Lakeland VA Clinic will consolidate and expand the VA’s current Lakeland leases, which include primary care and mental health clinics.
Groundbreaking for the $57 million Lakeland VA Clinic at 2080 Meadowland Park Blvd. was held April 21, 2022, and the total buildout, including equipment, is $100 million.
The new clinic’s 121,000 usable square feet will include:
- Increased access to the primary care Patient Aligned Care Teams.
- Increased access to mental health care from nine psychiatrists and 10 psychologists.
Other features are or will be a department for audiology, an eye clinic, a multi-specialty area to include podiatry and home oxygen and rooms for physical therapy and prosthetics.
There will be an in-house laboratory, dispensing pharmacy and patient rooms for CT scans, X-rays, mammography, MRIs, and ultrasounds.
As for administrative functions, there are sections for home-based primary care, eligibility and enrollment.
Vanessa Osting, chief medical officer of the Lakeland VA Clinic, calls the new clinic a blessing, citing its size as one of its major benefits – five times bigger than the old Lakeland VA building on South Pipkin Road.
“Given we moved in earlier than originally planned, we do not have all the services up and running yet, but we do have all the services we had in the past,” she says. “We’re looking forward to continuing to meet the needs of our Polk County veterans.”
Osting says she expects the clinic’s current staff of 133 employees to increase to 235 to serve approximately 12,000 patients like Mann in the Lakeland clinic each year.
“It’s drudgery having to go to Tampa with I-4 traffic and the seniors that are older than me that have to make that travel…is just a mortal nightmare,” Mann says. “This will change having to make those trips.”
