Straining to keep a promise-Backlogs, long waits plague VA hospital system

[babylonsister]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/11/straining_to_keep_a_promise/

Straining to keep a promise
Backlogs, long waits plague VA hospital system

By Charles M. Sennott, Globe Staff | March 11, 2007

Jeffrey Lennon returned from Iraq to his hometown of Plymouth a broken man. Soon enough, he would also be a very angry man.


A sergeant in the US Army Reserve, Lennon was racked by nightmare visions of fellow soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed during his tour of duty. Almost anything could trigger the memories, particularly smells of garbage and gasoline that steer his mind back to the roads of Iraq.

He abandoned his dream of being a police officer. He took refuge in alcohol. He contemplated suicide.

And he waited, and waited, for the Department of Veterans Affairs to help him make his way back.

Diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder in March 2004, it may take months, he said, to get an appointment for mental health counseling at the VA Medical Center in Brockton because of staffing shortages. It took more than a year before he began receiving his $348 monthly check for partial disability.

"The people at the VA want to help, but the system is broken. They are just so overwhelmed," Lennon, 30, said.

Veterans Affairs is a vast agency that makes a vast promise, one literally etched in bronze at the entrance to its headquarters in Washington -- "To Care for Him Who Shall Have Borne the Battle and for His Widow, and His Orphan."

But the VA is straining, and, many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans say, often failing to live up to those words.

more...

[maddezmom]

1. 3/9 NYT: Veterans Face Vast Inequities Over Disability

Veterans face serious inequities in compensation for disabilities depending on where they live and whether they were on active duty or were members of the National Guard or the Reserve, an analysis by The New York Times has found.

Those factors determine whether some soldiers wait nearly twice as long to get benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs as others, and collect less money, according to agency figures.

“The V.A. is supposed to provide uniform and fair treatment to all,” said Steve Robinson, the director of veteran affairs for Veterans for America. “Instead, the places and services giving the most are getting the least.”

The agency said it was trying to ease the backlog and address disparities by hiring more claims workers, authorizing more overtime and adding claims development centers.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2760605

[American2]

2. It is our country's.......

It is our country's SHAME that the VA is so incompetent regarding the care of all our Veterans.

[babylonsister]

3. Yes, we have a strange way of 'supporting the troops'. And welcome

to DU, American2! :hi:

[newyawker99]

5. Hi American2!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[fed-up]

4. "Not only is there proof that they knew of increased demand for services at the VA"

"The backlog of disability claims is up to more than 400,000 by the VA's count and climbing. Wait times to process claims are running nearly seven months, on average -- quicker in some places and much longer in others, as Lennon and other veterans have found. In cases where the extent of disability is disputed and an appeal is filed, resolution can take more than two years.

...snip"Not only is there proof that they knew of increased demand for services at the VA and did nothing. They knew and were actively trying to conceal it," "said Sullivan, who left the agency in frustration, taking with him a trove of unclassified documents that he provided to the Globe."




Is there anyone on DU that lives in Boston or anywhere that gets the Globe that can send me the actual newspaper article? Thanks in advance.