SEMINOLE – The Bay Pines VA Healthcare System recently announced the new location for the St. Petersburg VA Community Clinic.
The clinic was previously located in the Pinellas Technical Education Center building at 3420 Eighth Ave. S., St. Petersburg. In February 2009, the space was returned to PTEC.
In order to expand services to area veterans, the clinic will be relocated to 840 Dr. MLK Jr. St., St. Petersburg.
The new clinic, leased by the Department of Veterans Affairs, was leased at an estimated annual cost of $196,000 for a minimum of three years.
The new clinic is significantly larger at a total of 7,000 square feet. It will include expanded primary care services and mental healthcare, laboratory specimen collection, a pharmacist for medication consultation and an Operation Enduring/Iraqi Freedom Case Manager. The clinic will be designed to provide gender specific care for female veterans, which includes larger rooms, better layout for privacy and adjacent restrooms.
Approximately 2,000 square feet of the clinic will be used to house the Mental Health Intensive Case Management program which is a program for seriously mentally ill patients. There will be approximately 15 staff working for this program who were previously located at Bay Pines. Most of the work by these staff members is done in the community, where the veterans live.
Last year, approximately 1,200 veterans sought care at the St. Petersburg VA Clinic and almost 6,000 outpatient visits were conducted. The new location and expansion in services will allow for additional patient capacity at the new clinic, expected to open later this fall or winter.
