A new veterans’ clinic in Green Bay was dedicated today.
The outpatient clinic, which will eliminate the need for vets to take long road trips to get medical care, is named for the late Private First Class Milo C. Huempfner of Green Bay who served in Europe during World War II.
His daughter, Jackie Schneider, spoke about how Huempfner was known as a “one-man army” while serving in Belgium. “This lone soldier, separated from his unit, made life-saving decisions: decisions that saved not only American lives but also those of innocent civilians.”
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The Green Bay outpatient clinic will begin treating patients on Monday. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Under Secretary for Health Robert Petzel says the local clinic will virtually eliminate the need for veterans to go out of town for doctors’ appointments or outpatient surgery.
“We estimate 95 to 98 percent of the care that a patient might need is going to be available in this facility,” says Petzel. “They’re not going to have to make that long trip to Milwaukee.”
Petzel says one of the clinic’s priorities will be treating what he calls “unseen wounds.” Nationwide, he says, the VA treated 1.3 million veterans for mental health issues last year. The number of increases every year due to improved screening practices and the high rates of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seeking out care.
Petzel says the Huempfner clinic is one of the VA’s largest outpatient centers.
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