Despite a media release from Sen. Claire McCaskill's office applauding the Mount Vernon Veterans Affairs Clinic for staying opening, VA officials say the office never was in jeopardy of closing.
In August, University of Missouri Health Care officials announced its Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mount Vernon would close effective Oct. 31. The MRC currently houses the VA clinic, with its lease due up the same day as the closure, Oct. 31 - prompting a point of confusion for many.
"It was always intended for the clinic to stay open, even if we had to relocate within Mount Vernon," said Wanda Shull, a spokeswoman for Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks. "Right now, we have a tentative plan to extend our lease with the MRC through the end of the year and hopefully longer than that."
Upon signing a new lease agreement, the clinic will remain in the MRC building through Dec. 31, with other plans in place to remain an additional three years until clinic functions can be transferred to a new VA clinic in Springfield.
"The plan has always been to relocate to Springfield in three years," Shull said, noting the timeline didn't change with the MRC closure.
The VA outpatient clinic currently leases 35,000 square feet of space from MRC to operate a primary care, community-based outpatient clinic, according to Springfield Business Journal archives. The VA anticipates the Springfield clinic would open in 2017.
With MRC's closure, the VA clinic will loose some ancillary functions the hospital provided, such as lab technicians, clerical workers and physical therapists. The VA currently is seeking to hire 32.5 full-time equivalent positions to fill in the gaps.
"This is an advancement of our current timeline," Shull said. "We would have had to fill these same positions in the move to Springfield."
All services - including sleep, lab and radiology - will remain in their current locations, according to
the clinic's website.
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