President Obama has signed a bill that will provide $6.7 million for a new VA health clinic in South Bend.

Calling it a “done deal,” U.S. Rep. Joseph Donnelly, (D) Indiana’s 2nd District added, “If we do one thing, it is to keep our promises to the men and women who have served our country and provided us with our freedom.”

South Bend already has a VA clinic on Ironwood Drive, but the new clinic would be ten times larger in terms of square footage (65,000 sq. ft. compared to 7,000 sq. ft.) and three times larger in terms of staff (150 compared to 55).

The new clinic is designed to offer services that local vets now have to go to places like Fort Wayne and Chicago to get.

“You need to be able to have an audiology test where you can get your hearing aid and get them in a timely fashion,” said VFW Post 9423 Commander Rich Mrozinski of Rolling Prairie. “When I took my father in law to get his hearing aid it took ten months from the time we went there until he got his hearing aid. I know vets right now who are suffering from loss of hearing and are having a hard time because they have to either travel to Fort Wayne to get a hearing test, or to Chicago to get a hearing test.”

Kevin Kelsheimer works as the St. Joseph County Veterans Services Officer and expressed similar concerns about excessive travel: “So now you have them running down (to Fort Wayne) for their hearing test, then they get rated with a disability, then they have to go back down to be fitted with a hearing, for a hearing aid and then they have to run back and then go back down to get the hearing aid, so you know you’re taking three trips to Fort Wayne for a hearing loss.”

In time South Bend area veterans will be able to get a hearing aid at a clinic in South Bend, and take advantage of other medical services that aren’t current offered locally.

“They’re going to open up more mental health care from my understanding and like I said, audiology, optometry, colonoscopy, stuff like that is going to be all handled here,” said Kevin Kelsheimer.

Today veterans joined with U.S. Rep. Joseph Donnelly, (D) Indiana’s 2nd District to celebrate the good news, and acknowledge the ‘bad news,’ that the clinic won’t open until 2015. “But recognizing the important needs in our area we’re going to be able to have an interim clinic up and running probably you know four or five months,” said Congressman Donnelly.

The interim clinic will be located at 333 W. Western Avenue in South Bend at the former Gates Toyota building.

The interim clinic will be roughly twice the size of the current clinic on Ironwood with double the staff. When the interim clinic opens, the Ironwood clinic will close.

The VA has yet to select a location for the permanent clinic.