Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1. Subcommittee Told VA Facing Over One Million New Disability Claims. NextGov (6/17, Brewin) reports, “The Veterans Affairs Department faces a wave of more than a million new disability claims this year, a workload compounded by delays in developing automated systems to process them, department officials and representatives of veterans services organizations told House lawmakers on Wednesday. In addition, employees at the Veterans Benefits Administration have difficulty managing paper claims in a work environment described as ‘hostile’ and that has ‘deteriorated significantly’ since Eric Shinseki took over as VA secretary in January 2009, a representative of the American Federation of Government Employees told” a “hearing of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs the hearing.” However, Michael Walcoff, acting undersecretary for benefits at VA, “told lawmakers the agency has begun a series of pilot programs to help streamline claims processing.”

2. VA, HUD Teaming Up To Assist Homeless Veterans In Oregon. The Salem (OR) Statesman Journal (6/17, Guerrero-Huston, 44K) reports, “Homeless veterans in Marion and Polk counties will get help in paying for affordable housing through” a “joint effort between” the US. Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD and the US Department of Veterans. After noting that the program “aims to find shelter for homeless vets and their families with the use of housing vouchers and to connect them with social service case management that could lead to self-sufficiency,” the Statesman Journal quotes VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, who said, “The most effective option to providing veterans permanent shelter is HUD-VA supportive housing.”

3. Arlington National Cemetery Headstones Found On Banks Of Stream. The Washington Post (6/17, Davenport, 684K) reports, “Several mud-caked headstones line the banks of a small stream at Arlington National Cemetery,” farther “upstream in a wooded area, a few others lie submerged with the rocks that line the stream bed. On Wednesday, after The Washington Post alerted the cemetery to their presence, officials there said they were shocked to find the gravestones lying in the muck near a maintenance yard. Already under fire in recent days for more than 200 unmarked or misidentified graves and a chaotic and dysfunctional management system, cemetery officials vowed to investigate the headstones along the stream and take ‘immediate corrective action,’ said Kaitlin Horst, a cemetery spokeswoman,” who also “said that the cemetery’s new superintendent, Patrick K. Hallinan, a longtime cemetery official with the Department of Veterans Affairs, checked out the streamside headstones and ordered their removal.”

4. Lebanon VAMC To Host Symposium On Women’s Health. The Lebanon (PA) Daily News (6/17, 19K) reports, “A Women’s Health Symposium will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Women’s Health Clinic, on the fifth floor of Building 17” of the Lebanon Veterans Affairs Medical Center in South Lebanon Township. The Daily News adds, “The Lebanon VA Medical Center’s Women Veterans Health Program provides health-care services for eligible women veterans to include primary care, gynecological care, family planning and birth control, infertility evaluation and reproductive health care, mental-health services, and special programs for vocational rehabilitation, educational opportunities and homeless services, according to a news release.”

5. Former Military Psychiatrist Calls For “Culture Change” To Address Troop Suicides. NPR (6/17, Tarabay) reports on its “Morning Edition” show that almost “as many American troops at home and abroad have committed suicide this year as have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. Alarmed at the growing rate of soldiers taking their own lives, the Army has begun investigating its mental health and suicide prevention programs,” but retired brigadier general and former military psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis, MD, explained that is not enough, saying, “There’s a whole culture change that would really need to occur,” not only at the Pentagon, but also on the local base level, to address the problem of suicides. He also suggested that the “military track things like DUIs, discipline problems, marital issues — all things that could be potential red flags” that a soldier is in psychological trouble.
VFW Commander-In-Chief Notes Suicide Rate For Redeployed. The Gettysburg (PA) Times (6/17, Fulton, 9K) reports, “Among the many aspects of military and military family support provided by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) is that of finding ways to reduce the suicide rate among soldiers. National VFW Commander-in-Chief, Thomas Tradewell,” who was “attending this week’s convention of the Pennsylvania Department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in Cumberland Township, told the Times that suicide among military personnel has been determined to be highest among redeployed soldiers … those being sent back to Iraq or Afghanistan for a second or third tour of duty.”

6. Panel Urges US Government To Provide $300 Million For Vietnam War Cleanup. The AP (6/17, Mason) reports, “A joint panel of US and Vietnamese policy makers, citizens, and scientists released an action plan” this week, “urging the US government and other donors to provide an estimated $30 million annually over 10 years to clean up sites still contaminated by dioxin, a toxic chemical used in the defoliant. The funding would also be used to treat Vietnamese suffering from disabilities, including those believed linked to exposure to Agent Orange, which was dumped by the US military in vast quantities over former South Vietnam.”

7. VA Consultant Says Bar Coding Technology Has Greatly Improved Agency Care. The June issue of Pharmacy Practice News (6/17, Lowry) reports, “Ten years ago, the hospitals that made up the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system in the United States were considered by many to be the worst in the world.” Today, however “VA is credited with running some of the best health care systems in the nation,” thanks to the bar-code medication administration (BCMA), according to “Ronald Schneider, RPh, MHA, pharmacist consultant” to VA, who made reference to a “book called ‘The Best Care Anywhere’ by Phillip Longman, which touts VA’s use of information technology and bar coding to streamline and enhance patient care. ‘We didn’t pay this guy to write this,'” said Dr. Schneider.

8. NC Hospital One Of Five VA Facilities Operating Under New Surgical Policy. NPR (6/17, Jones) reports, “A new rating system now restricts the types of surgery performed at certain Veterans Affairs facilities in five states,” which means some veterans will need to “travel farther to reach other VA facilities or civilian hospitals for more complex surgeries.” NPR, which notes that the policy “comes after investigations found that surgical mistakes had caused nine deaths in the department’s Marion, Ill., hospital a few years ago,” says the “VA hospital in Fayetteville, N.C., is one of five facilities restricted to standard surgery only.” However, the “new restrictions on the Fayetteville facility do not bother Wally Tyson, the national vice chairman of Disabled American Veterans,” who “says very few complex procedures were performed” at the facility anyway.

9. VA Plans To Move North Carolina Outpatient Clinic. The Fayetteville (NC) Observer (6/17, Calhoun, 61K) reports, “The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to move its Fayetteville outpatient clinics to a new, 250,000-square-foot building by the end of 2013, officials said this week. The VA Medical Center in Fayetteville is one of seven in the country that have been approved for a new facility to accommodate the rapid growth of the veterans population, said Mark Hall, a capital asset manager” for VA. Norma Fraser, a hospital spokeswoman, “said the new building would house all outpatient primary care and specialty clinics.”

10. VA Rural Health Outreach Clinic To Open Soon In West Virginia. On its website, WSAZ-TV Huntington, WV (6/16, Francis) said veterans “in the Gallia County area in need of medical assistance will soon be able to get it closer to home,” because a “new VA Rural Health Outreach Clinic is set to open in the county. According to a press release, the new” Veterans Affairs staffed clinic will be located Gallipolis.