Cape Girardeau VA Medical Center to open at month's end

Cape Girardeau's new 45,000-square-foot Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Center, 711 S. Mount Auburn Road, is expecting to see its first patients Feb. 28.

"We will close the community-based outpatient clinic (in Cape Girardeau) on Feb. 24 and 25 to do the moving," said Angela Smith, chief of communications and stakeholder relations for John J. Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

The Cape Girardeau facility will feature virtually the same primary and specialty care clinics as the Pershing Center in Poplar Bluff, with veterans also able to access women's and men's mental health care providers, receive optometry, cardiopulmonary, physical therapy and other care options.

The 30 employees at the existing clinic at 3051 William St. will move to the new center and an estimated 100 additional employees are being added.

The William Street clinic serves about 5,000 veterans; the new South Mount Auburn center is expected to serve 8,000.

The lobby will have a "cafe-style" area where in the post-COVID-19 era, officials expect to bring back the community coffee pot veterans have grown accustomed to at VA facilities.

A ribbon-cutting will be scheduled, according to Smith, but no date has been set.

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