Lynn VA answers the call of duty

LYNN – After he became disabled in 2004, Alan J. Frost said veterans services offices across the North Shore turned down his requests for help until he walked into the Lynn Community-Based Outpatient Clinic and met nurse Daphne Fantauzzi.?She came around the corner and I said, ?You got 10 minutes?” She said, ?I have all day,?” said Frost.The Peabody resident and U.S. Navy veteran is one of 2,100 veterans registered to receive services in the clinic operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and located in the medical building at the corner of North Franklin and Boston streets.Veterans come to the clinic from nearly 20 different area communities, but Fantauzzi said 80 percent of the clinic?s patients are Lynn residents.Fantauzzi has worked for Veterans Affairs for 39 years and seen the Boston Street clinic since it opened in 1998 grow from a 600 square-foot office and examination room into the current 6,000 square-foot facility. The clinic?s nine-member staff includes three doctors.A Navy veteran who served in 1967, Frost said he was initially told he was ineligible for care or had lost his right to receive it. A fellow veteran directed him to the Lynn clinic.?He said, ?If you are going to get any help, you?ve got to come here,?” he said.Fantauzzi and Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Maureen Heard said the VA is working to help veterans learn about their medical benefits and obtain them through the clinic and other locations.Town and city veterans agents, including city Veterans Services Director Michael Sweeney, provide veterans with information on the clinic and other VA services, including education and job assistance.Veterans can visit www.va.gov or come to the clinic for benefits information.?We are a very complex organization but we try every day to inform veterans,” Heard said.Clinic workers also try to make it easier for veterans to obtain medical services. Frost makes appointments at the clinic or takes a shuttle bus from the medical building parking lot to the VA hospital in Bedford. He praised local Disabled American Veterans members with giving veterans rides to appointments.Clinic doctors see patients every half hour on a busy day, but veterans can also receive care through the clinic?s “telehealth” system. Using their home computer or a large-screen monitor in one of the clinic?s examination rooms, patients can talk online with doctors at other locations or participate in physical therapy sessions, counseling and other health programs.?Telehealth is important because we have a lot of elderly patients. It is easier for them to come to the clinic instead of going to Bedford,” Fantauzzi said.Telehealth clinic technician Cheri Glassett said telehealth doctors? visits allowed veterans to receive some of their care at home last winter and avoid slippery walkways or dangerous drives.?We want them to get the right care at the right place at the right time,” she said.Heard, a Lynn native, doesn?t just work for the VA. Her 20 years of combined service with the Air Force and Coast Guard make her eligible to receive its services.?I always thought the VA was just for men, but we have a lot of services for women,” she said.Lynn resident Nancy Dasaro has been a nurse for 20 years and seen the help the Lynn clinic and access to telehealth provides veterans, including ones with mental health and substance abuse problems.?It?s hard for people to admit they need help and, when they do, the health care has to be there for them,” she said.She has been a doctor for 38 years, but Rita Wadhwani said she worked hard to listen and understand veterans when she began working for the VA three years ago.?They come from a different culture – they have come back from war – but once you understand them; it?s a win-win situation,” she said.Frost agreed.?This office is great and the people here are great,” he said.