By The Chronicle employees

As lots of as 3,500 community veterans may quickly have to make the trek to Olympia for health treatment, as the South Audio VA Clinic in the Lewis County Shopping mall prepares to shut this October.

Clients will be redirected to a new Olympia VA-operated clinic, which will open Aug. 16, according to Tami Begasse, VA Puget Sound Wellness Care Program general public affairs director.

Begasse cited “prohibitive costs” to managing the clinic, expressing VA Puget Seem will not be renewing its contract for the facility.

“Coming in at $4 million annually, the for every-individual expenses less than the recent deal are the greatest in the country, and we have a responsibility to each the veterans we care for and to taxpayers who fund that care,” she wrote.

The Chehalis clinic opened in 2010, when, as The Chronicle documented, quite a few area veterans drove to VA Puget Sound’s Tacoma area for primary care.

The shift is predicted to minimize expenses by a million bucks each year for the VA, and could suggest achieving an added 2,000 people in Mason, Pierce and Thurston counties, Begasse wrote.

The new 9,739-square-foot facility will provide in-clinic and house-centered care, laboratory companies, behavioral health, social do the job, prosthetics and orthotics, clinic pharmacy professionals, telemedicine and diet.