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VA to build top-level trauma center in Texas

After a year of pleading for more services for veterans in Texas, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, announced Tuesday that the Veterans Affairs Department will build a $67 million Level One polytrauma center in San Antonio.

Hutchinson had argued that veterans in Texas often had to travel hundreds of miles for care, and that sometimes they suffered ailments that left them in no shape for long car rides. Those veterans also had to pay for their own travel.

Level One polytrauma centers are considered the most advanced hospitals for veterans, and address the needs of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with multiple wounds caused by explosions.

The new center will be built at the Audie Murphy VA Hospital campus.

Funding comes from the 2007 wartime supplemental funding bill, as well as the fiscal 2008 military construction and veterans’ appropriation bill, which passed the Senate last week. Another $45 million will go to upgrade VA polytrauma centers in Palo Alto, Calif.; Tampa, Fla.; Minneapolis; and Richmond, Va.