Veterans Home begins $3.5M addition

Murfreesboro facility one of many in state to expand

By CHARLES BOOTH
Staff Writer

MURFREESBORO — With some 500,000 veterans calling Tennessee home, it’s turning out to be a busy summer for the State Veterans’ Home Board.

The board recently started work on several projects, including a $3.5 million addition at the Murfreesboro facility, to add more space for ailing former soldiers.

“It’s the need,” Grover Poteet, board chairman said last week at a groundbreaking ceremony in Murfreesboro. “This is the third groundbreaking this spring, and that will still not meet all the needs of veterans.”

The Murfreesboro State Veterans’ Home is currently a 120-bed long-term care facility, and work just began on a 20-bed, special needs unit addition. This is the same type of addition going in at the 120-bed facility in Humboldt, and construction of a new, 140-bed Veterans’ Home is currently taking place in Knoxville.

Bill Sullivan, an administrator for the Murfreesboro facility, stood under a tent last week as the heat gave way to dark clouds and thunder, and he pointed to the space on the home’s shaded lawn where the new addition will be built.

“It’s going to be attached to this (facility),” he said. “It will primarily cater to dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.”

State Veterans’ Homes provide long-term care for veterans and their spouses, and Tennessee Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner John Keys said the new additions and facilities will benefit current and future veterans.

With the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, these types of facilities will likely be sought after by new generations of veterans.

“This represents a small payment for those who are now worn and tattered,” Keys said.

Sidney Brown, a board member from Clarksville, came to the groundbreaking ceremony in Murfreesboro. He said in a few years, another facility will likely be built in his community, which includes the Fort Campbell military post. In regards to the Murfreesboro and Humboldt sites, he said it’s “very important” they start providing special needs care.

“When it (the Murfreesboro Veterans’ Home) was first built, they weren’t thinking about Alzheimer’s patents,” he said. “We’re catching up in Tennessee, but there’s a lot of states ahead of us.”

Poteet said these two facilities will be the first in Tennessee to offer full time Alzheimer’s units, providing constant supervision for these patients.

Rod Wolfe, executive director of the board, said the Murfreesboro facility was the first one in Tennessee when it was built in 1991, and this is the first addition it received since it opened. And, as Wolfe said, there’s one key ingredient that makes these facilities important to both patients and administrators.

“It’s veterans taking care of veterans,” he said.

Source: The Tennessean, July 13, 2005