New Hazard VA clinic expands care for Perry County veterans

Perry County veterans got a larger local foothold in care Friday as the new Hazard VA Community Clinic marked its opening at 160 Nautilus Drive, a move meant to replace a cramped setup that had been operating with temporary pods. The clinic’s footprint grew from 9,664 square feet to 12,600 square feet, a change that matters in a county where many veterans have had to weigh every trip to an appointment against travel time, scheduling and gas money.

The ribbon cutting came at 11:30 a.m. on May 15, 2026, and the expanded space was built to do more than simply hold more patients. The new clinic includes dedicated areas for primary care, outpatient mental health, telehealth, women’s health, physical therapy, home-based primary care, expanded specialty care, and rooms for group sessions and veteran community events. That mix turns the Hazard site into a broader access point for routine visits, follow-up care and support services that once could require a longer drive out of the county.

The clinic serves about 1,500 veterans assigned to the Hazard location, according to VA information shared in June 2025, and those patients were told to expect letters about the move and a point of contact. For veterans in and around Hazard, the new site is designed to ease some of the bottlenecks that come with a smaller office, including crowding, privacy concerns and the inconvenience of piecing together care across multiple stops.

Lexington VA Health Care System, which serves nearly 40,000 veterans across central and eastern Kentucky, said the Hazard clinic is part of a network that includes two Lexington campuses and four community clinics in Berea, Hazard, Morehead and Somerset. Officials also framed the project as part of a broader modernization push for eastern Kentucky. In an infrastructure update, Russell Armstead said new funding would help Lexington VA continue modernizing and improving facilities so they remain safe, efficient and equipped to provide high-quality care.

The project took longer than first expected. County and VA officials broke ground near East Perry Development on Oct. 19, 2023, and early planning described a building of about 13,000 square feet that was supposed to open in early 2025. Hazard, the Perry County seat, had a population of 28,473 in the 2020 census, which underscores how much this single clinic matters in a small county where one local medical site can shape access for hundreds of families.