OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The Department of Veterans Affairs will move closer to its goal of having more veterans closer to primary health care by building new medical clinics and establishing new psychiatric care beds.

Officials said Wednesday that five outpatient medical clinics will be built in Vinita, Jay, Enid, Altus and Stillwater, while 15 psychiatric care beds will be set up at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Muskogee.

The projects are scheduled to be completed by 2012, officials said, although there's no timetable on which clinic will be built first or last.

The changes are part of Veterans Affairs' comprehensive plan to modernize its system of health care centers under the ''Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services.''

Veterans Affairs officials want to have at least 75 percent of Oklahoma's more than 365,000 veterans within a half-hour of primary health care. The federal agency also wants to save money.

There are outpatient clinics presently in Muskogee, Tulsa, McAlester, Lawton, Ponca City, Konawa, Clinton, and Ardmore.

Dean Derieg, Disabled American Veterans department adjutant in Oklahoma City, said new clinics are needed because many state veterans can't make long drives to VA hospitals in Oklahoma City and Muskogee.

About 72,000 of Oklahoma's 365,000 veterans were treated last year in Veterans Affairs health care centers, up from 60,000 in 2000. In 2003, Veterans Affairs spent $1.2 billion in Oklahoma, up from $843 million three years before, officials said.

''If this does nothing else than make medical services more convenient for veterans, who have given everything they could for this nation, then that's just fine,'' Derieg said. ''They're still veterans; they still need services.''

The community-based clinics provide basic primary care with an initial 10-day supply of pharmaceuticals to veterans. They also have access to urological care; ear, nose and throat treatment and some laboratory and radiological services.

Oklahoma's five new outpatient clinics are part of more than 150 new community-based clinics established nationwide.

In July 1999, a General Accounting Office study found that Veterans Affairs was diverting $3.6 billion every 10 years from veterans' health care to maintenance on unneeded or unused medical centers.