Everyone wins with this one.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ decision to build an outpatient health care center north of the aging VA Medical Center at Lake Avenue and Randallia Drive is indeed, as U.S. Rep. Mark Souder said, a victory.

The VA will proceed with its heavily criticized plan to close the vastly underused and costly inpatient hospital. But rather than force local veterans to seek inpatient care at VA hospitals in Indianapolis, the VA will contract with a local hospital to offer veterans inpatient care. Such a move will be much more convenient for patients and much more cost-effective.

The cavernous building, designed for 200 inpatient beds, is nearly 60 years old and has only about 10 percent that many overnight patients.

Rather than scale back outpatient services as well, as some veterans feared, the VA will build a larger center that offers more outpatient care, including orthopedics, dialysis, pain management and other services. The new services will be much more convenient for veterans, who often had to travel to Indianapolis for care that will now be offered in Fort Wayne.

The VA apparently recognized the need for more – not less – medical care, especially in the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

While some patients may still regret the loss of the inpatient unit, so much more health care is done on an outpatient basis, the VA is right to emphasize it. And the government really cannot support such a little-used inpatient hospital, particularly in a city that has no fewer than five other inpatient hospitals.

Area residents will never know exactly how much this decision is due to Souder’s dogged advocacy for the center and to the willingness of President Obama’s administration to place $60 million in the 2011 federal budget to build a center. But Souder has, without question, worked persistently to keep the issue both in the public’s eye and on the Washington radar screen, and his work has apparently paid off.

The congressman was the target of unfair criticism in the 2006 race from some detractors who claimed he hadn’t done enough. On the contrary, the local VA center has been at the forefront of Souder’s agenda, and the congressman deserves much credit for last week’s announcement.

Now, with the new center’s opening still five years away, the VA, the Obama administration and Congress must fulfill the promise made last week to build the center.

Far too much uncertainty and secrecy has surrounded the fate of the local VA hospital for the last five years. Area veterans deserved the peace of mind about its future that the government delivered last week.