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Safeguarding health

By Tim McCarthy, United States Marine Corps., retired - Salem | Oct 28, 2018

When the Manchester VA Medical Center experienced extensive flooding last year and needed to move its patients to other facilities, physicians and physician assistants working for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs at that location faced an unanticipated hurdle: They were not licensed to practice in New Hampshire outside of the VAMC.

Gov. Chris Sununu acted by signing an executive order stating that, owing to the emergency circumstances related to the Manchester facility flooding, the state licensure requirement was waived for those USDVA physicians and physician assistants licensed elsewhere. In declaring the flooding of the Manchester location an emergency, the doctors were able to continue caring for their patients under a current law exempting physicians from the licensure requirement in emergency situations.

When the original executive order, signed in August 2017, was close to expiring, Sununu issued another executive order to extend the license exemption another 240 days. His focus is to ensure that our state’s veterans had no unnecessary interruption in their medical care. Sununu recognizes the importance of safeguarding the health and well-being of our veterans, the very people who put their lives on the line to safeguard our country.

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