Expanding Care for Veterans in New Mexico
Today, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) and Department of Veterans Services (DVS) announced plans to expand long-term care services for veterans at Fort Bayard Medical Center (FBMC) in Silver City, New Mexico.
As the state’s veteran population ages, DVS reports that there is a need for as many as 200 additional long-term care beds for New Mexico veterans NMDOH has worked over the last few years to improve service capacity at state-operated facilities across New Mexico.
To make this change possible, NMDOH will relocate drug and alcohol abuse treatment services currently offered at its Yucca Lodge Chemical Dependency Treatment Center (located at FBMC), to the New Mexico Rehabilitation Center in Roswell. The move will enable FBMC to focus its efforts on long-term care services and expand veterans’ services utilizing the space left vacant by the transition.
New Mexico Rehabilitation Center (NMRC) will become the southern New Mexico hub for NMDOH’s drug and alcohol treatment services, along with the department’s Turquoise Lodge Hospital in Albuquerque. NMRC and Turquoise Lodge will offer inpatient and outpatient drug and alcohol misuse and abuse services including: medical detoxification, social rehabilitation, and Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) services.
“This move improves the efficiency and sustainability of the services that our facilities provide,” said NMDOH Cabinet Secretary Lynn Gallagher. “Fort Bayard Medical Center can better serve New Mexico’s veterans just as they served us and our nation; and we can better address substance misuse and abuse at the New Mexico Rehabilitation Center whose primary focus is rehab services.”
Earlier this year, NMDOH and DVS announced plans to streamline and improve services for New Mexico's veterans by moving management of the State Veterans Home in Truth or Consequences from NMDOH to DVS, aligning both state and federal resources to better serve our veterans.
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