Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 12-09-08

1. Survivors Observe Pearl Harbor Day
2. Keeping Alive Pearl Harbor Recollections Is New Battle.  
3. Franklin County Veteran Remembers Impact Of Pearl Harbor Attack.
4. Casualties Of War.   VA Doctor To Head PTSD Workshop In North Dakota.  
5. DOD Begins Testing Online Personal Health Records Feature.  
6. VA Hospital In New Hampshire To Open Hospice Unit.  
7. Lake City VAMC Offers Hospice Care.  
8. Veterans Groups Call For Changes In South Dakota.  
9. VA Pairing Disabled Veterans With Community Caregivers.  
10. Groundbreaking Ceremony Held For National Cemetery in California.

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This week, December 7-13, is National Hand-Washing Awareness Week. The timing couldn’t be better since flu season is now upon us. Washing your hands is the single most effective way to prevent the spread of infection. In fact, washing your hands saves lives! (Check it out at http://www.cdc.gov/Features/HandHygiene/.)
Good hand hygiene is easy:
— Wet your hands with clean running water and apply soap. Use warm water if it is available.
— Rub hands together, making lather, and scrub for 15-20 seconds (imagine singing "Happy Birthday" two times).
— Rinse hands well under running water.
— Dry your hands using a paper towel or air dryer. If possible, use your paper towel to turn off the faucet.
— If soap and clean water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub.

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1.      Survivors Observe Pearl Harbor Day.   The Wichita (KS) Eagle (12/9, Siebenmark) reports that on Sunday at the Robert J. Dole Regional Veterans Affairs Medical Center Auditorium, "five Pearl Harbor survivors" attended a 67th anniversary observance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

2.      Keeping Alive Pearl Harbor Recollections Is New Battle.   The San Diego Union-Tribune (12/9, Hasemyer).

3.      Franklin County Veteran Remembers Impact Of Pearl Harbor Attack.   The Chambersburg (PA) Public Opinion (12/8, Taylor).

4.      Casualties Of War.   The San Diego Union-Tribune (12/8, Liewer).

5.      VA Doctor To Head PTSD Workshop In North Dakota.   The AP (12/8) reported, "The North Dakota National Guard and Bismarck’s Medcenter One hospital are sponsoring a workshop dealing with combat-related" post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Guard spokesman Dan Murphy "says the event Thursday night and Friday in the Bismarck armory will train clinical psychologists on treating the disorder." Dr. Ann M. Rasmusson, "the medical director of the Veteran’s Administration-Boston health care System PTSD Programs, and also a research associate of the Veteran’s Administration National Center for PTSD," will "head the workshop." The AP added, "Murphy says training more psychologists in treating the disorder will help a larger number of soldiers in the Upper Midwest who suffer from it."

6.      DOD Begins Testing Online Personal Health Records Feature.   NextGov (12/9, Brewin) reports, "The Defense Department began testing an application on Friday that allows soldiers, veterans and their families to manage their personal health records online using programs provided by Google and Microsoft." The DOD’s "Military Health System launched the feature, called MiCare, at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., where patients there can use either the patient-controlled health records application developed by Google, called Google Health, or Microsoft’s health records application, Microsoft HealthVault, MHS said."

7.      VA Hospital In New Hampshire To Open Hospice Unit.   The Rutland (VT) Herald (12/8) reported the Veterans Affairs medical center in Manchester, New Hampshire, "will open a new unit specializing in end-of-life care by late summer. Federal officials recently approved the hospice and palliative care project," which "includes $786,000 in federal funding to cover 15 new employees. VA spokesman Jim Thompson says there are only three other such units in New England for veterans."

8.      Lake City VAMC Offers Hospice Care.   The Lake City (FL) Reporter (12/7, Hardison) noted that veterans from many wars "have been helped through the years by an agency now known as Veterans Affairs." Many services "are provided at the VA Medical Center in Lake City, which is part of a network that includes 19 Georgia counties and 33 Florida counties." Among "those services is hospice care," which "has been offered" in Lake City as a "separate discipline for slightly more than five years now."

9.      Veterans Groups Call For Changes In South Dakota.   The Sioux Falls (SD) Argues Leader (12/8, Harriman) reported, "A year-and-a-half-old battle between South Dakota’s major veterans organizations and the administration" of Governor Mike Rounds "is apparently going to continue into the 2009 legislative session. At a meeting Saturday with Sioux Falls-area legislators, representatives from the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans pressed lawmakers to pass a concurrent resolution to create a state department of veterans affairs separate from the Department of Military Affairs that now oversees veterans issues." The representatives "also urged for a bill requiring the director of the division of veterans affairs to have nothing less than an honorable discharge from military service. This stems from a belief among veterans leaders that their assessment was not taken into account when George Summerside was named state veterans affairs director more than a year ago."

10.    VA Pairing Disabled Veterans With Community Caregivers.   The Salt Lake Tribune (12/8, LaPlante) said the US Department of Veterans Affairs "is trying a new approach" veterans "who cannot live on their own: It’s pairing them up with community caregivers willing to take disabled veterans into their homes and provide 24-hour supervision and personal assistance." Social worker Tom McClure "conceived of the idea of placing ailing veterans in family homes in 1987. After playing unofficial matchmaker to veterans and caregivers for more than a decade, McClure was given a grant to start an official pilot program." By 2002, he had "made more than 20 placements," when "a skeptical Thomas Edes, director of home and community-based care for the VA, arrived to look into the program." Edes "has since become one of the program’s biggest champions — and has helped secure funding for hundreds of placements and dozens of similar efforts, including the burgeoning program in Utah."