Merril Lundman VA clinic to open in new location on Inauguration Day

The new location of the Merril Lundman VA Outpatient Clinic will open in the Holiday Village Mall in Havre on inauguration day, Jan. 20.

A press release from the Montana Veterans Administration Health Care System announced the opening and says the new location will provide more than 3,000 square feet of space, nearly tripling the size of the previous location.

The original Merril Lundman VA Clinic located on 13th Street was named after a Havre-area veteran who fought to get a clinic in the area until his death Dec. 22, 2007, at age 64, which preceded the announcement of the clinic opening by only a month.

Lundman started a petition drive to request the creation of a VA clinic in Havre after the city was passed over for selection in favor of Cut Bank and Lewistown.

He believed it was unfair that veterans in north-central Montana had to travel so far to receive their benefits, often needing to travel to Glascow or Great Falls.

“The loss of Merril, so close to the fulfillment of his dream, is tragic,” then-U.S. Sen. Max Baucus D-Mont. said when the selection was announced Jan. 23, 2008. “This clinic is a testament to his dedication to his country and his fellow soldiers.”

The added space of the new clinic’s location will facilitate the use of of the VA’s Patient Aligned Care Team — PACT — model, around which the facility is being built.

The PACT model, the release says, is a patient centric method of care giving where veterans will need only a single room for all appointments with specialists on hand to address whatever needs they have.

“Instead of a veteran going to each provider,” the release says, “each provider comes to the veteran in a ‘one-stop shop’ approach.”

The model is designed to integrate and coordinate care with services like primary care, social workers, mental health care professionals, and others, the release says.

“We are excited to provide Havre area veterans a clinic that is only the second in Montana to be designed entirely around the VA’s PACT model,” said MTVAHCS Executive Director Dr. Judy Hayman. “It has been a MTVAHCS priority to provide integrated and streamlined care in Havre and the new PACT-designed Merril Lundman VA clinic makes this possible.”

The release said the clinic will also include a full-time provider Mondays through Fridays, expanded mental health care with an on-site social worker, as well as a dedicated women’s health exam room and a laboratory, as well as other specialists capable of working with clients through telehealth.

In an interview in July, Montana VA Health Care System’s Public Affairs Officer Katie Beall said the new location will allow them to serve the growing number of people who need the services of the VA.

“We’re looking to move because we need more space,” she said “… We’ve simply outgrown the space we’re in right now.”

Beall said the clinic is serving more and more people as the years go on and it has became clear that the previous location just wasn’t able to accommodate the needs of everyone they serve as efficiently as they need, and the new location will be able to solve that problem.

She said the new location will also provide much more parking as well as public wifi and improved sound masking for the sake of patient privacy.

Beall said the goal is to provide for a greater sense of community for veterans while improving their care.

The release said patients with scheduled appointments on or after Jan. 20 should expect to be seen at the new location and if they have questions about the relocation, they should call 406-265-4304.