Doctors at the clinic say it's still in the transition period, but should be a better experience with expanded care for veterans. (Shawn Wilson/KTUU-DT)

Doctors at the clinic say it's still in the transition period, but should be a better experience with expanded care for veterans. (Shawn Wilson/KTUU-DT)

by Rhonda McBride KTUU

May 10, 2010
ANCHORAGE, Alaska—
Patients and staffers at Anchorage's veterans' clinic have waited two years for this day: the opening of their new building on North Muldoon Road.

The transition has been a juggling act at the old clinic on Debarr Road.

Last year the clinic served more than 16,000 patients -- four times the case load as back in the early nineties.

On top of that, there are soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, all in need of services that the new clinic aims to provide.

The new clinic is still a work in progress, but for staffers and patients, so far, so good.  

"Nice and airy and spacious; lots of room; everybody's in a new attitude, and it's feeling good," said Elexandria Carr, a retired Air Force veteran and staffer at the clinic.

"Every thing's so new. It's beautiful. Wonderful," said Sue Foley, an operating room nurse.

The transition comes at an exciting time, giving the clinic a chance to modernize care and improve upon the experience of coming to the clinic.

"The patients are going to love it, absolutely love it," Foley said.

"It is more user friendly for our veterans," Dr. Patty Parr, chief of medicine, said.

It is more user friendly in both layout and strategy.

"The mind and body do not exist in isolation and people need care for both," Parr said.

The goal is to provide one-stop shopping for veterans so they can tap medical care and social services like counseling at the same time. 

"You might have someone… saying they're having trouble sleeping. But when you ask more questions about it, what's really going on is, ‘I'm very, very stressed and very, very worried because I just got laid off from my job,'" Parr said.

About half of the staffers at the Anchorage VA Clinic are veterans themselves, like Dr. Bill Theobald. 

"I was in the Air Force for 22 years. I'm pretty proud of that," he said.

Theobald says serving today's veterans is a chance to serve his country yet again.  

"We certainly want them to have the best care they can have. They've done something for me and I'm doing something for them," Theobald said.

With the number of veterans growing every year, the clinic needed more dentists. But until now there wasn't enough room for them to work.

"We didn't have the capability to see X-rays on a computer," Theobald said.