Veterans Outpatient Clinic Opens In Clermont

The Orlando VA Medical Center is celebrating a new veterans outpatient clinic in Clermont. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the center on Oakley Seaver Drive (see map) Monday morning.

The clinic means that thousands of veterans in the Lake County area can get the services they need closer to home.

Dozens of veterans were at Monday morning’s ceremony when officials from the VA clinic officially opened the doors.

Korean War veteran John Manke lost one eye, has high blood pressure, and suffers from shingles. He's been traveling from Clermont to Gainesville for the last five years to see a doctor.

“It’s about 100 miles up there and 100 miles back and I think, for some of us, it's getting harder to drive long distances,” Manke said.

Now it will be easier because officials with the Orlando VA Medical Center opened a new outpatient clinic in Clermont.

The 6,300 square-foot facility is closer for about 6,000 veterans who live southwest of Orlando. Officials believe some of them are like Vietnam veteran Donnell Hill, who visited a VA clinic for the first time Monday, because the drive to clinics in Leesburg, the Villages, Orlando, Tampa and Gainesville was too far.

He's been worried about developing side effects from Agent Orange exposure.

“I was only 30 yards from where they loaded Agent Orange, uniforms smelled so bad when I came home, had to throw them away,” Hill said.

When veterans walk in for service at the new clinic, they will be taken into one of eight exam rooms where they can get routine checkups, mental health treatment, and social work care or lab tests. However, they will have to travel to other facilities for major issues.

“A fracture, things like CT scans. Other specialties, orthopedics, might still go there,” said Dr. Pedro Roldan, Clermont VA Clinic.

But at least patients won't have to go as far as Gainsville for those major procedures because when the new VA Medical Center in Orlando opens in 2012, doctors there will perform cat scans, some surgeries and transplants.