New VA Hospitals Coming to Oklahoma

Dylan Perkins is a 2015 Westmoore High School graduate who immediately joined the army.  A year later, during a mission in the Philippines, Dylan was carrying 150 pounds of gear on his back, when he fell down a mountain, breaking his back and neck.

Now 26 years old, Dylan is 100 percent disabled and spends a lot of his time volunteering with his service dog named "Juliette” at Honoring America’s Warriors in Oklahoma City.    

“It's saved my life. She's saved my life more times than my therapist has in the last couple of months. I have gone through it with the medications they have me on, I’ve been in and out of the ER,” says Perkins.

Dylan and his wife Alyssa live closer to Norman than they do to Oklahoma City. Which is where Perkins currently gets the VA help that he needs. Five months ago, the VA announced it bought a 50-bed, 40-thousand-square-foot hospital. Previously known as "Norman Specialty Hospital" on Robinson Street in Norman.

Oklahoma City VA healthcare system Director Wade Vlosich says the new Norman facility will be called the Norman Regional Medical Center.

"Ever since COVID happened our rural network around the state has started to collapse, and so there's not very many private sector places veterans can go. So, the VA in OKC is trying to reach veterans to bring their care closer to home,” says Vlosich.

“We have run out of space in our main hospital for inpatient services, nursing home services, and also mental health services. So, what this new building will allow us to do is build a 29-bed inpatient substance abuse facility and a 29-bed short-stay nursing home facility, and those are desperately needed in the VA right now,” says Vlosich

It will still be two years before the Norman Regional Medical Center opens because they still have a lot of work to do.

“This will be a great place, a really healing environment when they are done. They will redesign a lot of the functions here. There are outside courtyards for the veterans. They'll have medical health providers for the veterans. They'll have physical therapists and geriatric providers, and we will be working in concert with the Norman Vet Home, which is just down the street,” says Vlosich.

"I think it's going to help thousands of veterans and give them an outlet that otherwise wouldn't be there. You know it's giving them somewhere they can go when they are in need. Other than the other downtown emergency room, it's more central to them and specialized for their needs,” says Perkins.

“We are one of the highest-growing facilities in the nation right now. We're second to San Francisco.  We are seeing over the past couple years, we have seen 23 percent growth in much of our outpatient workload and our outpatient population,” says Vlosich.

"What we have been able to do is take some of our beds we have here or some of them are brand new, and give them to our tribal health partners or Indian health services, and they will be picking it up in the next two weeks, and so not only have we done the property, but we are able to give a lot of the equipment to those in need,” says Vlosich.

In downtown Tulsa, the state recently handed over this office building to the Eastern Oklahoma VA Healthcare System. That building sits next to Tulsa’s Oklahoma State Medical Center. VA spokesman Marcus Webb says the VA is partnering with OSU on a 58-bed VA emergency room and in-patient facility.

"So, one of the great things about this project is we will be working closely with them to expand their residency programs. One of the things we will be doing there is having residency training programs and having them walk across the street to learn and train with us,” says Webb.

He says a new federal law makes veterans who've been exposed to toxic chemicals and even agent orange eligible for benefits, and he says the number of veterans on this side of the state who need help has also shot up.

"Here at this hospital, one of the reasons we pursued this project is because the majority of our veterans here in eastern Oklahoma reside in the Tulsa area and surrounding communities. So, we needed a bigger footprint here in the Tulsa area, so we could best serve our veterans,” says Webb.

Perkins says with 22 U.S. veterans committing suicide each day, help like this will go a long way.

"By the grace of God and the love of my family, there is a reason that the suicide rate up there is 22 a day. I firmly believe that number is up there because people aren't checking in and helping these guys and girls. I'm lucky enough to have a wife that loves me and parents that dropped everything to be at the hospital with me when I need them," says Perkins.

That Tulsa VA facility will be ready in late 2024 or early 2025.