Oxnard Clinic to Treat VA Patients

Ventura County’s veterans no longer have to travel far to see a doctor.

Beginning this week, patients of the Department of Veterans Affairs will be able to see a physician at Community Memorial Hospital’s Citrus Grove Clinic in Oxnard.

Until now, veterans who wanted to see a VA physician had to travel to Santa Barbara or the San Fernando Valley, said Michael Lurie, Community Memorial’s director of planning and managed care.

“This is going to give them a much more local option for treatment,” Lurie said.

George Compton, the county’s Veterans Service officer, said that until now, getting medical treatment could take hours.

“To go to an appointment, it was an all-day affair,” Compton said. “This is a real step above that. This is a real plus for the veterans of Ventura County.”

Compton’s agency already has been talking to veterans who want to take advantage of the new clinic.

“We’ve had a steady stream of guys coming in here to sign up,” he said.

A nurse practitioner has been treating patients at Naval Base Ventura County for two half-days a week, but the Oxnard facility will be more comprehensive, Lurie said.

“The Port Hueneme [naval base] facility was a fairly limited offering by the VA,” Lurie said.

The new clinic is “a unique opportunity to provide service to an underserved population,” he added.

“It’s a different aspect of, or a different part of, the population that we ordinarily don’t get to work with much.”

For now, the Oxnard clinic will offer only primary-care services, Lurie said. Patients needing specialized care will still be referred to other VA facilities.

The clinic will be open weekdays, but its primary physician, Dr. Ginger Schechter, initially will be on hand to treat new patients three half-days a week, said Dr. Richard Reisman, Community Memorial’s medical director.

In addition, he said, “the actual facility always has two other providers. They are also able to see veterans that have acute problems.”

As demand for services grows, Schechter plans to increase the amount of time she spends at the clinic. “That’ll probably expand pretty quickly,” Lurie said.

Veterans can experience a variety of ailments not common to the general population, including post-traumatic stress disorder and sickness from exposure to Agent Orange, Schechter said.