QUINCY – City councilors in Quincy say they strongly oppose a plan to close the VA outpatient clinic in North Quincy and are calling on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to launch a “robust community engagement effort” to discuss the proposed closure with those who would be affected.
A plan announced last month by the federal agency would change where thousands of veterans in Massachusetts receive medical care. It includes closing the Quincy VA outpatient clinic in favor of a new South Weymouth location.
Quincy City Councilors Brian Palmucci and Nina Liang brought a resolution to oppose the plan to the city council meeting this week.
“Veterans already struggle with transportation issues. … Not only do they struggle to get adequate or good medical services, this plan would potentially put them further away from those medical services,” Palmucci said. “There really has been no public discussion about this plan thus far.”
The Quincy clinic serves more than 1,400 veterans living in the Quincy, Braintree and Weymouth area. It was inside Quincy Medical Center for 14 years before it moved to its current Squantum Street location in 2015 to share space with Manet Community Health.
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Ward 6 City Councilor Bill Harris said it would be a “travesty” to close the clinic. Ward 1 Councilor Anthony Andronico said the prospect of a closure was brought up at the last Quincy Veterans Council meeting and that members “did express concern.”
Ward 5 Councilor Chuck Phelan said, “A lot of the people seeking service are older and you’re asking them to go further, to drive further. The convenience of Manet, plus the quality of Manet, the service they give to the veterans … The men and women who are giving their all for their country should be taken care of.”
Council President Noel DiBona said moving the clinic would take away the convenience of MBTA access and make accessing health care even more of a hardship for those who need it.
The VA said it would close medical centers in Massachusetts, New York and Ohio along with dozens of other facilities and open hundreds of new points of care it said would improve access to primary care, mental health treatment and other services for hundreds of thousands of veterans.
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Massachusetts’ eastern market – stretching from the coast to Worcester County and including Rhode Island – had 132,367 patient enrollees in 2019, and a 14% drop is expected by fiscal 2029, the VA said.
Demand for inpatient medical and surgical services is projected to decrease by 11.3% in that market, according to the federal government, and demand for inpatient mental health services is projected to decrease by 15.7% between fiscal 2019 and 2029.
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Information from the State House News Service was used in this report. Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com.
Read More: Quincy councilors bash plan to close local VA clinic