Legislators fighting to prevent Troy VA Outpatient Clinic from closing

A couple of legislators are fighting to prevent a Troy VA Outpatient Clinic from closing.

Democratic Assemblyman John McDonald and Republican Assemblyman Jake Ashby have joined two other legislators in fighting to keep the clinic open.

The VA clinic sits on River Street in Troy. The center serves veterans all across the Capital Region. According to John McDonald, the community based outpatient clinic is looking to close on July 31. He says the center has seen a decline in patients and the lease is expiring.

Ashby and McDonald both say they heard from veterans who say they want the center to stay open. If it closes, veterans would have to travel to the Clifton Park Center or the Stratton VA Center in Albany for treatment.

They sent a letter to the executive director of the VA asking to keep the VA open.

NewsChannel 13 reached out to the Department of Veterans Affair for comment. They sent this statement:

"The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) is committed to providing the best quality, safest and most effective health care available for our Veterans; healthcare they earned and deserve. After a thorough analysis of various factors including the steady decline in Veteran population, enrollees, contract limitations that affect VA’s ability to meet Veteran needs such as limited specialty care, women’s health and Telehealth/Telemedicine, and continually rising fixed costs, it has been determined that the Troy CBOC should be realigned with the Albany VA Medical Center as Albany VAMC pursues a long-term plan of opening a multi-specialty CBOC to serve the broader Capital Region area. Care of Troy CBOC Veterans will transition based on Veteran’s choice of VA facilities, which includes the nearby Albany VA Medical Center (9-miles away) and CBOCs in Clifton Park (13-miles away), and Schenectady (14-miles away), as well as CBOCs located in Catskill, Bennington and Pittsfield, which are all located within 50-mile proximity of the current Troy site."