WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen Ron Wyden announced in a press release on Tuesday, May 31, the first of three online town halls for Eastern Oregon veterans, their families and veterans service providers to ask top Veterans Administration officials health care questions, including about the agency’s proposals to reduce physical and mental health services in the region.

The first veterans-focused town hall meeting for Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, Baker and Morrow counties is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 4.

The town hall follows a letter the Democratic senator wrote earlier this month about VA recommendations that the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Walla Walla, Washington, be reclassified to a community-based outpatient clinic and to move its 31-bed residential rehabilitation treatment program 180 miles north to Spokane.

“The message I heard consistently at my recent town halls in Eastern Oregon made it clear that veterans have lacked a real opportunity to share their legitimate concerns about how these proposed changes will reduce access to both physical and mental health care,” Wyden said in the release. “Veterans deserve topnotch care here at home thanks to their service, and I’m committed to working with them and the VA through these veterans-only town halls to brainstorm solutions to secure that quality and accessible care.”

The VA already has a community-based outpatient clinic in La Grande, which is frequently used by veterans in the rural region. The proposed changes to the Walla Walla center would make it similar to the La Grande clinic, and local veterans who need services beyond the outpatient clinic would have to travel to Spokane instead. Wyden has cited winter conditions, lack of public transit and weather-related highway closures as reasons for concern over the proposed limitations of the Walla Walla clinic.

In a letter addressed to Dr. Teresa Boyd of the VA Northwest Health Network Office and Walla Walla VAMC Director Scott Kelter, Wyden wrote that he finds these changes “particularly troubling to my constituents in Oregon, who often trek across state lines to receive crucial care from the VA,” he wrote. “Adding 180 miles to their commute will effectively cut off access to behavioral health and substance use treatment services.”

Wyden, Kelter and Boyd will participate in the town hall. To link to submit questions is https://bit.ly/3M28YIe. The link to watch the June 4 meeting is https://bit.ly/38RQMnb.