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WASHINGTON — Hailed by an injured former soldier as a godsend for veterans, a new long-term care spinal cord injury center for veterans in Dallas moved closer to reality Thursday with the signing of key legislation by President Joe Biden.
“I would definitely love to be there,” Albert Patterson, a Vietnam War veteran living in Bonham who’s had multiple surgeries on his spine, said. “I would have immediate care.”
The Major Medical Facility Authorization Act cleared the Senate earlier this month by unanimous consent. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., introduced the Act in the Senate with Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas.
In the House, it passed 413 to 7 with four Democratic cosponsors: Rep. Mike Levin of California and Reps. Marilyn Strickland, Kim Schrier and Derek Kilmer of Washington. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, who introduced the House bill, and Kilmer, Levin and Schrier joined Biden for the bill’s signing.
“We were there for something I think we all agree is a great thing for the country,” Allred told The Dallas Morning News. “The way the president was really excited to sign a bill like this and to have it reach his desk — I think that’s certainly what my constituents want, but I think it’s also what the American people want from us.”
The Act authorizes over $2 billion in funding for the construction and expansion of Veterans Affairs facilities across the country, including $249 million for a new long-term care wing in the Spinal Cord Injury Center at the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas.
The construction will expand the current Center, which right now only has a 30-bed acute inpatient unit for short stays and a home care program that serves about 170 patients. This new long-term care center would provide 30 more beds, with capacity to expand to 60, for Dallas-area veterans in need of expert care over a longer period of time.
“Typically, the acute in-patient units are for limited, brief stays,” said Dr. Bridget Bennett, chief of spinal cord injury at the North Texas VA. “But the long-term care center, you can kind of think of it as nursing home level of care — it’s a home-like environment.”
Bennett said the long-term center will be separate but adjacent to the acute in-patient unit, which is connected to the main hospital. The new project will offer a variety of services the Center has so far been unable to provide.
For example, Bennett said, veterans with spinal cord injuries in nursing homes don’t always get the care they need because the physicians do not have the education or the experience needed to manage spinal cord injury patients.
“It fills in a huge gap because we have not only the physician knowledge, the nursing knowledge, but the rest of the team that [includes spinal cord injury-trained nurses and therapists],” she said. “That’s key for us.”
Additionally, Bennett said, with the new long-term care wing, they will be able to care for veterans who are dependent on ventilators, and because of the connection to the main hospital, will be able to quickly address any tangential medical issues that come up for patients.
The Spinal Cord Injury Center currently serves about 800 veterans with both spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis. One of those is Patterson, who currently lives about two hours northeast of Dallas in Bonham — because it’s his only option.
“This is the only spinal cord unit that’s in this area that’s for long-term care, other than in Houston,” he said. “If we get one in Dallas, that would be a great help to surrounding areas here.”
Patterson served in Vietnam, where he injured his tailbone driving transport trucks on the rough terrain. After the VA retired him from military service, he began to fall frequently. Then, after surgeries on his neck and lower spine and a pulled tendon in his knee, he was eventually left unable to walk on his own.
To access the surgeries and care he needs, he has to make the two-hour trip from Bonham to the North Texas VA in Dallas.
“The trip itself is debilitating, the roads are not equipped to transport patients such as I back and forth,” Patterson said. “They don’t have the proper caretakers.”
Patterson said this new long-term care center will change the game.
“[Veterans like me with spinal cord injuries] will have ready access, and probably more speedy recovery from their injuries, from their surgeries, what have you, with on-site therapists there to assist [us],” he said.
This bill comes after Allred worked to secure an agreement from Baylor Scott & White Health and Tenet Healthcare to donate a vacant Scott & White hospital in Garland to the VA last year. While initially opened to treat veterans with COVID-19, the facility will eventually create thousands of jobs for North Texans.
“In the long term, this is a huge victory for our veterans and the city of Garland,” Allred said after the deal was announced.
Like the Garland Hospital, this long-term spinal cord injury center will expand the North Texas VA’s ability to care for Dallas-area veterans. Ahead of the Major Medical Facility Authorization Act’s final passage, Allred said on the House floor Tuesday that over 174,000 veterans live in North Texas.
“As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq come to an end, as a nation, we are reminded of our profound and sacred commitment to ensure each and every one of our veterans gets the support, services and care they need when they return home,” he said.
The VA’s Office of Research & Development estimates that roughly 42,000 veterans live with spinal cord injuries every day.
“We tend to focus on the medical aspect of it, but this will also be a community for them, a place where they belong,” Bennett said, referring to the long-term care center. “They are able to live among fellow veterans who have similar life experiences, military experiences, and veterans who have similar medical needs, which, you know, in a sense of community, that’s very significant.”