Hearing Spotlights Immediate Needs of Nation’s Women Veterans

Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, July 16, 2009, Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee Chairman John Hall (D-NY) and Health Subcommittee Chairman Michael Michaud (D-ME) conducted a joint hearing to assess the ability of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide care and services to the country’s 1.8 million women veterans. 

In general, medical care and services are provided by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for eligible veterans spanning many generations and periods of service.  Veterans file claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) to receive benefits earned as a result of their service, including but not limited to insurance, education, disability compensation, and burial assistance. 

“I fear that when the five years of open enrollment afforded to current conflict veterans ends, then these women will be denied treatment as they will no long qualify for health care since they are not service connected,” said Chairman Hall.  “Without service connection, they are not eligible for other VA assistance, such as vocational rehabilitation and employment services or housing, so problems don’t get better, they get worse.  Congress cannot allow that to happen to this nation’s daughters who have served her.  VA needs to ensure that their claims for disability benefits are fairly and judiciously heard.”

A recent report issued by the Government Accountability Office found that VA medical facilities do not consistently offer the necessary level of services to adequately treat the growing number of female veterans.  For example, only one-third of veterans’ facilities offer a separate space for women to receive gynecological, mental health, and social work services.  VA expects to have a gynecologist available at every facility by 2012. 

“It is reported that no VA hospital or outpatient clinic is complying fully with federal privacy requirements,” said Chairman Michaud.  “Women have answered the call and today serve our country alongside their male counterparts.  The changing role of women who serve in the armed forces demands a thorough and comprehensive look at what needs to be done to better serve them after they separate from service.”   

Although new services are being developed and implemented, the need is immediate for newly returning female veterans.  Key issues discussed by witnesses included: military sexual trauma, combat posttraumatic stress disorder, barriers to disability benefits, barriers to health care utilization, and the lack of research and data.  Women veterans face the additional challenges of having families and small children, being married to men serving in the military, and the difficulty of relying on peer support because there are fewer women that have served in combat than men. 

“The number of female veterans enrolled for medical care with the department is expected to increase by 30 percent in the next five years,” said Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  “We also know that women are serving in combat conditions right alongside their male counterparts, which raises a whole new set of issues for these veterans.”

The House of Representatives voted to approve H.R. 1211 (Herseth Sandlin), a bill to direct the VA to study barriers encountered by women veterans, assess all health care services and programs provided by the VA for women veterans, and provide graduate education, training and certification for mental health professionals who provide counseling, care and services to women veterans suffering from sexual trauma and PTSD, among other things. 

WITNESS LIST

Panel 1

Joy J. Ilem, Deputy National Legislative Director, Disabled American Veterans
Anuradha P. Bhagwati, Executive Director, Service Women’s Action Network
Dawn Halfaker, Vice President, Board of Directors, Wounded Warrior Project
1SG Delilah Washburn, USAF (Ret.), President, National Association of State Women Veterans Coordinators, Inc. and Regional Director, Texas Veterans Commission
Kayla M. Williams, MA, Member, Board of Directors, Grace After Fire, Author, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

Panel 2

Randall B. Williamson, Director, Health Care, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Phyllis Greenberger, Chief Executive Officer and President, Society for Women’s Health Research
Janice L. Krupnick, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Director, Trauma and Loss Program, Georgetown University Medical Center, on behalf of Committee on Veterans’ Compensation for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, The National Academies

Panel 3

Bradley G. Mayes, Director, Compensation and Pension Service, Veterans Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Accompanied by:

o       Dr. Patricia Hayes, Chief Consultant, Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Group, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

o       Lawrence (Bopper) Deyton, M.D., Chief of Public Health and Environmental Hazards Office, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

o       Irene Trowell-Harris, RN, Ed.D., Director for the Center of Women Veterans, Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs