Several central Illinois Veterans Affairs clinics are upgrading their range of services available to eligible veterans, as clinics in Bloomington and Decatur have joined the offices in Peoria and Danville in offering orthotic and prosthetic care in-house.
The Bloomington VA clinic at 207 Hamilton Road opened in 2019.
Orthotics are wearable medical devices like braces, calipers, and splints, fitted to the spine or limbs to assist with movement and pain management. Prosthetics are custom-fit replacements for lost body parts and can range in size from as small as a single finger to entire limbs.
The clinics have the ability to fit and fabricate the devices and consult with veterans individually to find the right device and fit.
“The majority of our patients are actually diabetic patients that we’re seeing for diabetic shoes, diabetic insoles, custom types of bracing to help with pain management and disease control,” Veterans Affairs nurse Amanda Secrist said.
The clinics in Peoria and Danville were previously the closest options for veterans in McLean County, something Secrist said wasn’t ideal.
“The big thing is we’ve been listening to what our veterans are wanting. You know, it’s a long drive from Bloomington to Peoria, or Bloomington to Danville. Our veterans like to be seen within the VA system, so our goal was to bring those services to them instead of them having to travel,” Secrist said.
VA clinics serve veterans from every era, from World War II to more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they offer a wide range of services from primary care, physical therapy, nutritional care, and more.
Renaming
The VA clinic in Bloomington could soon be named for a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient from Clinton.
U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, has proposed the outpatient clinic be named the "Andrew Jackson Smith Medal of Honor Department of Veterans Affairs Clinic."
Veterans groups support the move. They say Smith showed extraordinary bravery in the face of enemy fire from Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina.
"Corporal Andrew Jackson Smith went beyond what a solider was expected to do on November 30,1864. He saw that his regimental colors needed to be saved and did so in a distinguished manner along with his extraordinary valor in the face of deadly enemy fire," said Steven Holt, Commander of AMVETS Illinois.
Half of the officers and one-third of the enlisted soldiers in that battle were killed or wounded, according to the legislation.
