Riverhead VA clinic services expanded

Army veteran Robert Pisciotta, of Riverhead, works on his balance with physical therapist Christine Marino at the VA clinic in Riverhead on Monday. Credit: Jessica Rotkiewicz
Veterans on Long Island's East End now have more medical services closer to them with an expansion of the VA clinic in Riverhead.
The expansion increased the number of primary care physicians at the clinic from two to three, added an audiology facility for hearing exams, installed a new physical therapy suite, and increased some clinic hours, said Dr. Cathy Cruise, the acting director of the Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in Northport.
The department unveiled the expansion Monday, although it was completed in late summer. It boosts the agency’s ability to treat patients with hearing loss and physical therapy at the clinic, which is housed in a county building west of the Riverhead traffic circle near downtown.
Cruise said the expansion is part of the agency’s push to extend medical services into communities east and west of the VA’s main medical campus just east of Northport. The Northport facility is located on a narrow two-lane road nearly 10 miles from the Long Island Expressway, which can make it especially difficult to reach for elderly patients with rush-hour appointments.
Cruise said she is hopeful that the expansion will encourage more use of the satellite clinic by patients like Jim King, 76, a retired Mattituck lobsterman.
King, who earned the right to VA services as a 1960s crew member aboard the Navy submarine USS Sailfish, said he never used VA medical care before the Riverhead clinic first began expanding a few years ago.
“I never used the VA before, because Northport was too far away to get to,” said King, 76. “But I can’t say enough good about the service here.”
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