Senators Rosen And Cortez Masto Sent Letter Urging President To Include Construction Of New VA Hospital in Budget
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, U.S. Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) announced that the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget includes a new veterans hospital in Reno to replace the existing VA Sierra Nevada Health Care System’s medical center. This news follows a push led by Senator Rosen, along with Senator Cortez Masto, urging the President to include the construction of a new veterans hospital in his budget.
“Our veterans and their families sacrificed so much to protect our nation, and I’ll always fight to ensure they have the best access to quality health care when they come home,” said Senator Rosen. “I’m proud to have led the effort to push the President to include a new, state-of-the-art hospital in Reno in his budget to provide our heroes with the quality medical care they deserve.”
“I pushed the President to support this vital new Reno veterans’ hospital in his budget and I’m glad to see it’s been included,” said Senator Cortez Masto. “This is a big victory for Nevada’s veterans and I’ll keep fighting to make sure all the brave men and women who served our country get the high-quality care they deserve.”
All 17 counties in Nevada contain areas that are designated as “Health Professional Shortage Areas,” making access to quality and reliable care a critical issue statewide. This underscores the need for a state-of-the-art facility that provides quality health care treatment to the nearly 100,000 veterans who depend on the services administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities in Northern Nevada.
In 2012, the VA submitted a request to renovate the existing medical center in order to address infrastructure deficiencies and expand it to include a clinical and research wing. Since then, it has been determined that building a new, state-of-the-art facility to provide high-quality care to Nevada’s veterans would be more cost-effective, and the time to complete construction of a new facility would be significantly shorter than renovating the existing medical center.
Senators Rosen and Cortez Masto have been actively working to ensure the health of our nation’s veterans by helping to pass historic legislation that extends care coverage to toxin-exposed servicemembers, pushing to enhance mental health services at VA facilities, calling for the prevention of health center closures that would impact rural veterans, and introducing legislation to improve veteran suicide prevention efforts at the VA.
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