DENVER -- When officials broke ground on the new $800 million VA Medical Center, many veterans assumed that a residential treatment center for those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would be built in the new hospital.

But several were surprised to learn this month that the hefty price tag does not include the PTSD treatment center.

"This is beyond comprehension," said Rep. Mike Coffman, who is himself a veteran of the gulf war and of the war in Iraq.

VA officials told 7NEWS that "major construction funds" can’t be spent on the residential treatment facility, but that the facility will be built.

"The PTSD residential program is a crown jewel of VA in eastern Colorado," said Lynette Roff, director of the VA’s eastern Colorado health care system. "We are very committed to making sure it is included in our new facility and that it continues to grow."

Roff said the VA has applied for separate funds for a stand alone facility which will be constructed just to the north of the new hospital.

She said the $9.5 million PTSD Center will open about the same time as the new hospital.

"We have lots of time between now and 2013 or 2014 when we activate the hospital to make that residential treatment facility become a reality," Roff said.

That's good news for Chuck Douglas and Paul A. Hernandez, both Vietnam veterans who went through the program at the existing VA hospital.

“It has been immensely helpful to me,” Douglas said. “I can’t give enough credit to the staff.”

“I didn’t realize I had issues,” Hernandez said. “People with PTSD isolate themselves. They don’t talk to other people. You waste your life away basically.”

"We don’t want the new center for us," the two vets said. "We want it for the servicemen and women who are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Coffman said he’s going to see if the funding law needs to be changed.

"For them to have failed to incorporate this into their original plans makes me question a lot about what else is in the plan or isn’t in the plan," the congressman said.