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U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez is calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs to open a hospital in the Rio Grande Valley.
In a letter to VA Secretary Denis R. McDonough, Gonzalez called for Valley veterans’ “equitable access to medical services.”
“South Texas is a medically under-served region,” he said in a press release.
“According to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, the Rio Grande Valley is projected to have the state’s greatest percentage of unmet demand for nurses and a severe shortage of physicians by 2032,” Gonzalez said. “The fact is the infrastructure is not in place to demand more on community providers by also taking on the patient load of our veterans. The VA needs to help our veterans and meet the demands of our region, which has been overlooked for far too long.”
Gonzalez argued “South Texas veterans need equitable access to medical services.”
For decades, Valley veterans have been traveling to the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in San Antonio, leading area leaders to call on the VA to open a hospital to care for the region’s high numbers of veterans.
“Currently, those needing VA medical care need to either travel 300 miles … for the nearest VA hospital or visit local health care centers which are limited in the services they can provide,” Gonzalez said.
