Augusta VA hospital to get Norwood name

President Bush has given final approval to rename the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta after the late Charlie Norwood. The bill to rename the VA hospital was sponsored by Georgia’s congressional delegation.

The late Augusta Representative died in February at the age of 65, after a battle with lung disease and cancer. Norwood is a former combat dentist who settled in Augusta after returning from the Vietnam War.

Georgia has three VA hospitals--in Augusta, Dublin and outside Atlanta. The Dublin facility has also been renamed, for former Representative Carl Vinson of Milledgeville. Renamings of VA hospitals are somewhat rare. Of 155 medical centers across the nation, about 30 are named for people.

VA Clinic Opens in Rome, GA

A new VA Clinic is opening tomorrowin Rome to service some 75 thousand veterans that live in North West Georgia and local veterans will no longer have to drive to metro Atlanta to receive care at a VA Hospital.

Local Congressman Phil Gingrey spent a year and a half trying to get the Veterans Affairs Administration in Washington to open a clinic in Rome. Gingrey says he couldn’t have done it with out heavy lobbying from Georgia’s Veterans.

"The veterans themselves organized and signed over 2,000 petitions letters and when you put that on a desk in front of a commissioner in Washington and he can no longer see over his desk…that has a tendency to get his attention," said Gingrey.

The clinic will have basic laboratory and radiology services. Opening day appointments are already booked.