Milwaukee’s Zablocki VA Medical Center will receive $32.5 million for a new Spinal Cord Injury Unit (SCI) under the federal Continuing Appropriations Resolution for fiscal 2007.
Zablocki Medical Center is the only U.S. Veterans Affairs unit that treats spinal cord injuries in Wisconsin and only one of 23 in the United States.
The funding will improve patient care, maximize patient services and quality of life as it creates a new building that will include 38 patient beds. The new SCI unit will help thousands of veterans deal with irreversible Paraplegia and Quadriplegia, disabilities that are catastrophic to both veterans and their families.
Last year, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) of Milwaukee sent a letter signed by the entire Wisconsin Congressional delegation, to U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary R. James Nicholson, expressing their strong support for the funding.
When the House of Representatives’ Military Quality of Life Appropriations bill did not include funding for Zablocki’s SCI Unit, Moore offered an amendment to that bill to reinstate the funding. That bill was later taken up by the Senate, where Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) fought in the Appropriations Committee to ensure that funding was included for the new SCI Unit.
