[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5610 Introduced in House (IH)]






107th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5610

     To authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to construct a 
  comprehensive veterans medical center in southern Nevada that would 
include a full service hospital, an outpatient clinic, and a long-term 
                      care nursing home facility.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 10, 2002

 Ms. Berkley introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                     Committee on Veterans' Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
     To authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to construct a 
  comprehensive veterans medical center in southern Nevada that would 
include a full service hospital, an outpatient clinic, and a long-term 
                      care nursing home facility.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Southern Nevada Veterans Medical 
Center Act of 2002''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) Southern Nevada is one of the few regions in the 
        country with a growing veterans population.
            (2) The Department of Veterans Affairs built the Addeliar 
        G. Guy III Ambulatory Care Clinic in 1997 to serve as the 
        primary health care clinic for southern Nevada.
            (3) The Department of Veterans Affairs has recently 
        predicted that the number of annual visits by veterans to their 
        primary health care clinic would rise from 198,608 in 1998 to 
        524,804 by 2010.
            (4) The Department of Veterans Affairs has had to abandon 
        that clinic after finding substantial structural defects in the 
        building that houses the clinic. The clinic is no longer 
        structurally safe.
            (5) The Department of Veterans Affairs is proposing to 
        relocate its surgical specialty, primary care, medical 
        specialty care, and mental health clinics to nine separate 
        geographic sites throughout southern Nevada.
            (6) Southern Nevada's veterans have been forced to travel 
        to veterans hospitals located in California many hours away for 
        essential hospital services. The Department of Veterans Affairs 
        issued more than 1,500 referrals to southern California for 
        fiscal year 2002. Requiring veterans to travel great distances 
        for surgical and other procedures represents an unacceptable 
        burden on southern Nevada's veterans and their family support 
        base.
            (7) Southern Nevada's veterans are facing a health care 
        crisis. They have a fragmented clinic, no Federal long-term 
        care or nursing home facility, and no full service hospital in 
        southern Nevada.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION OF SOUTHERN NEVADA VETERANS MEDICAL CENTER FOR 
              PATIENT CARE.

    (a) The Secretary of Veterans Affairs is authorized to carry out 
the construction of a major medical facility project in southern 
Nevada. The project shall consist of a new medical center consisting of 
a full service patient care hospital, an outpatient clinic, and a 
comprehensive long-term care nursing home facility.
    (b) The Secretary is encouraged to co-locate the Veterans Affairs 
regional office at the site of the new medical center in order to 
provide services for veterans at a common site.

SEC. 4. PARTNERSHIPS.

    The Secretary of Veterans Affairs is encouraged to seek out 
partnerships with State and local government entities for the purpose 
of sharing the cost of planning, land acquisition, and construction, 
and the cost of maintaining, the center referred to in section 3.
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