The Veterans Administration has recently broken ground on their new facility in Missoula to manage health care needs of local vets.

The Community Based Out-Patient Clinic is being constructed between the Missoula International Airport and Garden City Plumbing at 3885 West Broadway. For those driving west on Mullan Road, they’ve seen a huge construction site which is Summit Beverage.

However, directly in front of that site observers will see the footings have been poured for this energy efficient health care facility.

At 61,000 square feet, that equates to 150% more space than the current clinic on Palmer Street. This additional space will allow the VA to serve more patients, provide more privacy to veterans seeking care, and to better ensure that the doctors, nurses and other medical personnel have the space they need to effectively do their jobs.

VA Montana provided the following list of services that are planned to be placed in this new VA Clinic/CBOC:

- Increased Primary Care and Specialty Care;

- Sleep Respiratory Therapy;

- Home Oxygen;

- Expanded radiology services;

- Prosthetics;

- Additional Behavioral Health;

- Point of Care Lab Testing;

- Larger Physical Therapy area;

- Additional Telehealth Services;

- Home Based Primary Care and

- Clinical pharmacists.

Plus, there will be more than 275 parking spaces which includes ample handicap parking.

Montana Sen. Jon Tester fought for this new facility as part of his bipartisan VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017, which aims to quickly expand the capacity of the VA to better serve veterans.

Vets from Seeley Lake to DeBorgia, to Thompson Falls and over to Polson, and from Salmon, Idaho, up through the Bitterroots and over to Helmville will benefit from this state-of-the-art facility.

“I’m extremely excited and pleased to be even a small part of the evolution of healthcare for Veterans in Western Montana. I’m confident that this new clinic will offer that to those who have earned this, and so much more,” said Ray Fredette, RN and Clinic Manager of the Missoula facility.

Fredette his staff will be handed the keys in November 2021 with hopes of seeing patients by January/February 2022.

The clinic is named after David J. Thatcher, an outstanding Montanan and U.S. Army Air Corps Veteran.

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Thatcher volunteered to serve as a tail gunner for a high-risk mission to attack targets deep within Japanese-controlled territory.