(SBT24/7News) U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-2nd, said Monday that hopes remain alive for converting a Mishawaka hospital into a hospital for veterans.

The comments came during a Veterans Day visit here by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Hoyer held a news conference in Donnelly’s downtown South Bend office to discuss veterans issues and to praise Donnelly for his work on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

The two members of Congress, one a veteran of more than a dozen terms and the other just finishing his first year in office, were surrounded by veterans in a show of solidarity for their efforts on behalf of men and women in the military.

Among House accomplishments on behalf of veterans, Hoyer and Donnelly said, are a $6.6 billion increase in federal funding, the largest in the 77-year history of the Veterans Administration.

The Granger Democrat noted that a new veterans clinic is scheduled to open soon in Elkhart County.

He also held out hope that a veterans inpatient hospital could open at the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center campus in Mishawaka once the SJRMC moves to a new building on Mishawaka’s north side.

Donnelly said the SJRMC’s South Bend facility, which will also be vacated, was deemed too large to serve as a veterans hospital, following a recent tour of the facility by Cathi Spivey-Paul, director of the Northern Indiana VA Health Care System.

The Mishawaka hospital also was judged during that tour to be a little too big, Donnelly said, but is still a possibility, even if only 75 percent of it is used.

Donnelly said there is no time frame at present for creating such a facility.

According to Donnelly, there are 58,000 veterans within the 2nd Congressional District, and perhaps more than 200,000 in what he called the strategic area that could be served by a new hospital here.