<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: ‘Lucida Sans’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Why can’t the state DHH and federal Veterans Administration officials use the existing Moss Regional facility for both a state-supported regional hospital and — at the same time — use the balance of the facility’s space and set that up as the VA clinic?</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: ‘Lucida Sans’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This way, the VA clinic can be created in an already-established medical environment, and at the same time the federal funding for the facility could help offset the needed dollars that appear to be on the chopping block by the state’s DHH.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tammie Arnold, spokeswoman for the Alexandria VA Health Care System, said Wednesday that the Department of Veterans Affairs did consider using Moss hospital for its community-based outpatient clinic when it advertised for sites and surveyed the market at the start of its lease-procurement process.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But she said officials chose to look elsewhere.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“At that time, VA determined that the facility could not meet the full requirements for the CBOC, and the site was excluded from the procurement. VA has awarded a lease contract for the new CBOC, so the opportunity to use Moss Regional Hospital has passed for this project,” Arnold wrote in an email.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“However, if VA needs space in Lake Charles in the future, it may consider the hospital property if it meets VA’s minimum requirements and is offered to VA in response to an advertisement.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The VA on April 22 said it would build a 24,000-square-foot clinic on a 4.5-acre site at 3601 Gerstner Memorial Drive.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In the news release announcing the VA’s plans, Arnold said the clinic would provide “timely access to primary care (including women’s health), basic imaging, physical therapy, prosthetics, general and specialty mental health (including substance abuse, smoking cessation and PTSD), basic laboratory, rotating specialty clinics based on veteran need, and dental services in an appropriately sized, efficient facility.”</span>

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<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Online:</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">www.alexandria.va.gov.</span>

<span class="R~sep~AHeadBrief">USPS: LC post office will remedy problem</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: ‘Lucida Sans’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Today is the third time in two weeks I’ve left the downtown post office to go to FedEx to mail my packages.</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: ‘Lucida Sans’;" class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Each time there’s one person working in one window, and the line of customers wraps around the counter. What is going on with the post office?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Informer posed the question to Mckinney Boyd, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Our commitment to customer service is to serve every retail customer, as quickly as possible,” Boyd wrote in an email.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“At the Lake Charles post office, the supervisor will monitor the retail window at peak times, and adjust the sales and service associates’ schedule to serve all of our customers in a timely manner.”</span>

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<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Online:</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">www.usps.com.</span>

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<span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">The I</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">nform</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">er answers questions from rea</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">ders each Sunday, Monday a</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">nd Wednesday. It is re</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">searched and written by</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Andrew Perzo</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">, an</span> <span style="font-style: italic; font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">American Press</span> <span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">staff wri</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">ter. To ask a question, call</span> <span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">494-409</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">8 and leave voice mail, or ema</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">il informer@americanpress.com.</span>