Fayetteville VA Medical Center Constructing New Nursing Home for Veteran Residents
By Rachel Leber
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The Fayetteville VA, in its continued efforts to bring services and comfort to its veterans is working on yet another way to improve veteran health and support services. With construction on a new veteran nursing home currently underway, Fayetteville’s veterans can plan on seeing its completion by Summer 2018.
The current CLC serves as host to the North Carolina State Veterans Home, a 150-bed long-term nursing home facility adjacent to campus. The Fayetteville VA enterprise comprises the medical center, the newly opened Health Care Center (HCC) in Fayetteville as well as an HCC in Wilmington, Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) in Jacksonville, Hamlet, Robeson and Goldsboro, an Outreach Clinic in Brunswick County and stand-alone dialysis center, also in Fayetteville.
The new nursing home that is currently under construction will be known as the Community Living Center, and is intended to improve upon and add to the services already offered by the Fayetteville VA Medical Center. The current Fayetteville VA Medical center is a 60-bed general medicine, surgery and mental health facility, which also includes a 69-bed long-term care Community Living Center (CLC) to care for Veteran residents, according to a Fayetteville government newsletter.
While current VA patients who require long-term care receive excellent care at the 69-bed unit in the main hospital building, the intended purpose of the new CLC is to relocate the VA Medical Center unit to a more “home-like environment,” separate from the main hospital building, to better serve the needs of veterans, according to Jeff Melvin, a spokesman for the Fayetteville VA Medical Center in a recent interview with the Fayetteville Observer.
The building, which is adjacent to the Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Ramsey Street will include an inpatient ward that supports hospice, short-term rehabilitation and long-term-care nursing home patients. In addition, patients will have private bedrooms and bathing areas, as well as common kitchen and dining areas, healing gardens and an outdoor lounge to encourage socialization.
The total project cost is about $24 million, and has been split into three parts, with the first two parts of the project including 33 beds in three houses and a community center for activities and rehabilitation. The third part of the project will consist of the final 36 beds, and still has yet to be funded. Toland Mizell Molnar based out of Atlanta, Ga. is the architecture and engineering firm on the project and designed phases I and II. Brigade Contractors, Inc. based out of Atlanta, Ga. was the general contractor for phase 1 of the project, with Harbor Services based out of Mt. Pleasant, S.C. serving as the general contractor for phase II of the project.