GARNER, N.C. — The race for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District is packed with 14 Republicans and one Democrat vying for that seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Veterans’ needs are a key issue for the candidates and voters in that district.
The Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System serves more than two dozen counties in Central and Eastern North Carolina. That includes Wake County, which has a high concentration of veterans, as well as Johnston County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state. Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is in neighboring Wayne County and Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, is just south of the district
When construction is done on the new VA clinic in Garner, it will be the area’s largest outpatient clinic and serve 27 counties in Central and Eastern North Carolina.
“This facility here is over 240,000 square feet. It will have various clinics here, mainly about 23 different types of services here,” Anthony Avery, the Wake Co. OPC Administrator for the Durham VA Healthcare System, said. “In our area we already have smaller clinics and their capacities are pretty full.”
Avery, a veteran himself, has worked for the VA for more than 15 years. He says the Durham VA Health Care System currently has a 70% penetration rate, meaning 30% of eligible veterans in the area aren’t enrolled in services.
Anthony Avery (right) watching construction progress at the VA clinic in Garner. (Spectrum News 1/Kyleigh Panetta)
“A lot of times it’s the access to care is just being able to get to a health care clinic that offers the specialties they need. Most community outpatient centers so far only offer very limited specialty care,” Avery said.
North Carolina is home to well over 600,000 veterans, making them a big voting block in the state. Having new resources, like this clinic, are key when many voters cast their ballots and while they’re deciding who they want making decisions about veteran issues in Washington, D.C.
By spring of 2025, at least 30,000 veterans will be able to access VA services at the clinic in Garner. For many, that’s much closer to home.
An aerial view of the construction progress at the VA clinic in Garner. (Spectrum News 1/Maurice Griffin)
“This is some of the best care you could get. So we want our veterans, we want to be able to provide that care to them right where they live so they don’t have to travel up 40 or some of these drive times up 70. They’ll come right here in their community.”
Spectrum News 1 asked the top candidates in North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District about veterans’ needs and here’s what they had to say:
Republican candidate Brad Knott said, “We need to devote more time, more energy and more dollars to the veterans to make sure that they can receive the care that they need. Homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness of every of every kind. Veterans are suffering and we need to reallocate the dollars that we are putting elsewhere. That’s, I would say, for lack of a better term, wasteful [spending] and reapply it to the veterans.”
Republican candidate Kelly Daughtry said, “Veterans who defended freedom here at home and around the world deserve the highest quality of health care from the federal government…When we elect President Trump and send Joe Biden back to his basement, he will have a strong partner in me as your next Congresswoman to invest more on veterans and improving VA hospitals.”
Republican candidate DeVan Barbour said, “In order to ensure our veterans have access to, and receive, the best care possible Congress must allocate appropriate funding to the VA system to provide for adequate staffing, integration of care, and continuity of care. Doing this will ensure our veterans will be able to receive the care they need, when they need it, where they need it from.”
Kyleigh Panetta
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