San Antonio Business Journal 

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded two contracts totaling $41.5 million to established the long-awaited “polytrauma center” to care for severely injured veterans.

The VA has been planning this center for years. Funds will also toward improving the existing wards at Audie L. Murphy VA Medical Center.

VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said Friday that Birmingham, Ala.-based Robins and Morton received a construction contract worth $37.2 million to build a three-story, 84,000-square-foot center. The center would provide physical medicine, rehabilitation services, prosthetics services and research to wounded veterans. The center will cater to combat veterans who were injured by roadside bombs and other explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. What makes this facility a polytrauma center is that it will specialize in treating individuals with multiple severe, life-threatening medical problems.

A second contract, valued at $4.3 million, went to San Antonio-based Strategic Perspectives Development. The company will upgrade and expand Ward 4-A. Strategic Perspectives will perform work to the electrical systems, utilities, fire alarm and fire protection systems, and telephone and data systems. The company will also provide asbestos abatement.

“A top priority for VA is providing greater access to VA’s health care system and higher quality of care for the nation’s Veterans,” Shinseki says. “America’s Veterans have earned the very best that this nation has to offer.”

Last year, VA spent more than $7.8 billion in Texas to provide care to the state’s 1.7 million Veterans. VA operates 11 major medical centers in the state, more than 40 outpatient clinics, 14 Vet Centers and six national cemeteries.