Could Osceola County use another VA clinic?
Welcome to the inaugural Veterans Voice column. I would like to thank the Editor and Publisher of the Osceola News Gazette for giving me an opportunity to write this column, which will appear on an occasional basis.
According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, there are approximately 17,000 veterans in Osceola County, about 6.5 percent of the County’s population.
I am one of these thousands of veterans, U.S. Air Force enlisted from 1978-2000. Although veterans, in general, have many things in common due to our military service, each veteran’s experience is unique to them. The “Voice” in this column needs to come from all of us.
The main purpose of this column is to be a source of discussion, news, and information of interest to veterans and their families both in general and to Osceola veterans in particular. To accomplish this, I definitely need help in the form of input from our Osceola veterans and their families. This can come in many forms, from information on news and events relating to Veterans Affairs (the “VA”), and various veterans’ organizations in the county, to hearing about veteran-related information and issues from our County Veteran Service Officer and state and federal elected officials and their staffs.
To that end, I have set up an email address, listed at the bottom of this column, to reach out to me.
Allow me drop a point to kick off some discussion — as with practically any matter in Osceola County, Orlando and Orange County tends to overshadow us. At times, this can work to our advantage. Despite one of the newest VA hospitals in the country located just across our northern border in Medical City, we have a brand-new VA clinic located in Kissimmee. With the continued rapid growth in Osceola County, perhaps another VA clinic location in Osceola County might soon (or already) be in order. While there is nothing to that effect currently in the works, it is not unreasonable to start getting the idea out there, given the pace of any government activity. Hopefully, community influencers and our federal elected representatives realize that to receive anything, the asking needs to start early and often.
Many of you know it took literally decades to get the new Orlando VA hospital approved, funded, and constructed, despite decades of having a large and ever-growing veteran population in Central Florida.
If there is a valid need, then the next question is the location of a new clinic. Poinciana, Four Corners, and even St Cloud come to mind, and I suspect there are several underserved areas of Polk County that would benefit from any new location on the west side of Osceola County. Probably the biggest impediment to that would be the artificial VA boundary line between the Orlando VA and Tampa VA districts, but that should not get in the way of helping veterans, should it?
Please let us know what is on the minds of Osceola veterans by sending us an email at Osceolavets@gmail.com.
