Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1. Shinseki Visits VA Facilities In Tennessee, Alabama. On Wednesday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki began a three-day tour of VA facilities in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Alabama, stopping first in Tennessee and Alabama. Both visits received extensive, mostly positive coverage from local media, which took note of comments offered by Shinseki about an upcoming increase in women veterans. In Tennessee, WKRN-TV Nashville, TN (6/23, 5:06 p.m. CT) broadcast that Shinseki, who “toured the VA’s Tennessee Valley Healthcare” campus, “says in about ten years, the US expects women veterans will make up 15 percent of the veteran population. He says Tennessee’s facilities are more than prepared to handle the future change in needs.”
WZTV-TV Nashville, TN (6/23, 9:16 p.m. CT) aired a less positive report, saying that when Shinseki toured the VA’s Nashville campus, it “asked him about…colonoscopy problems” at the VA hospital in Murfreesboro in 2008, when “veterans were exposed to viruses and diseases” because “pre-packaged parts from a supplier were faulty.” WATV, which said the “problem was system wide, with patients at other VA facilities being exposed,” showed Shinseki saying, “I think we learned from that experience,” and “I think we have procedures in place that address the issues that were discovered.” The WSMV-TV Nashville, TN (6/23) website, which published a similar story, noted that VA “offered free medical treatment to all those affected” by the colonoscopy problems.
WBRC-TV Birmingham, AL (6/23, 10:10 p.m. CT) broadcast that Shinseki, who “toured parts” of the Birmingham VA Medical Center, “gave the center high marks.” WVTM-TV Birmingham, AL (6/23, 6:13 p.m. CT), meanwhile, broadcast that the Secretary toured the hospital’s women’s center and its blind rehabilitation center.
Secretary: Ending Homelessness, Making Care More Accessible To Women Vets Are Top VA Priorities. The Birmingham (AL) News (6/24, Gray) reports, “Ending homelessness among veterans and making medical care more accessible to all who served in the military, particularly the growing number of women veterans, are top priorities for the US Department of Veterans Affairs. That was the message…Shinseki shared with reporters Wednesday,” following a tour of the Birmingham VAMC, including its women’s center. Earlier in the “day, Shinseki visited another center for female veterans during a stop in Nashville.”

2. House Subcommittee To Mark Up Several Veterans’ Bills. In the middle of “Today At A Glance,” CQ (6/24) notes that at 1 p.m. in 334 Cannon, the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity is scheduled to mark “up several veterans’ bills (HR 929, HR 3685, HR 4359, HR 4469, HR 4664, HR 4765, HR 5360, HR 5484).”

3. Veterans’ Town Hall Meeting To Be Held In Illinois. The Canton (IL) Daily Ledger (6/23) reported, “State Rep. Mike Smith (D-Canton) will be joined by Dan Grant, the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs,” in “hosting a Veterans’ Town Hall Meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 24, at the Pekin Public Library, 301 South Fourth Street, Pekin.” The meeting “will provide local veterans and their families with an opportunity to voice their concerns about the challenges and issues they face in securing state benefits and other items.”

4. Louisiana Grants Request To Delay Work On VA Hospital. The New Orleans Times-Picayune (6/24, Barrow, 169K) reports, “Under pressure from historical preservation groups, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Wednesday asked the state to block its contractors from razing scores of architecturally significant Mid-City homes while the city explores options to move the structures to make way for a new” US Department of Veterans Affairs hospital. A spokesman for the “state Division of Administration confirmed the state’s qualified approval of Landrieu’s request, but Michael DiResto emphasized that his agency will not endorse any long-term plan that increases the project’s cost or delays the construction timetable leading to a 2013 opening of the $800 million, 200-bed complex.” Landrieu’s “move came two days before the mayor will join federal and state officials, including Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki,” at a groundbreaking on the VA site. WWL-TV New Orleans, LA (6/23, 10:06 p.m. CT), WDSU-TV New Orleans, LA (6/23, 10:06 p.m. CT), and WVUE-TV New Orleans, LA (6/23, 9:22 p.m. CT) also aired reports on this story.

5. Money Awarded To Researcher Working For VA-Affiliated Institute. In a story focused on the news that four “Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have been awarded about $5.6 million for stem cell research projects,” the Escondido, California-based Contra Costa Times (6/24, Dungan, 186K) says “$885,475 was awarded to Husein Hadeiba of the Palo Alto Institute for Research and Education, which facilitates research and education activities” at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

6. Vets Court To Begin Operating In Minnesota. Minnesota Public Radio (6/24, Mador) reports, “In a few weeks, a special court designed to help veterans…is set to launch” in Hennepin County, Minnesota. The “court will be the first of its kind in Minnesota, and aims to help troubled veterans stay out of jail.”

7. Federal Grant Aims To Help Homeless Illinois Vets. The AP (6/24) reports, “Nearly $800,000 in federal money is headed to three Illinois groups to help homeless veterans.” On Wednesday, US Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) “announced…that the money comes from the Department of Labor’s Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program. It’s part of more than $24 million in grant money awarded nationally to about 14,000 groups.”

8. Task Force Criticizes Military’s Approach To Pain Relief. USA Today (6/24, Zoroya, 2.11M) reports, “The military’s failure to provide consistent and coordinated pain relief to troops contributes to suicides, prescription drug abuse and aggravates cases of mental illness and brain injury, according to an Army task force investigation” released Wednesday by a “22-member task force.” The task force “was created last year to examine how the military treats wound and injury pain – a growing consequence of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – and develop a comprehensive plan to treat it. The Pentagon must reorganize how it deals with troops in pain, including training and hiring more pain-management specialists and finding different methods of pain relief other than narcotics, the report says.”

9. Evansville Vet Center Co-Sponsoring Conference Honoring Women Veterans. The Evansville (IN) Courier & Press (6/24) reports, “Female military veterans will visit the University of Evansville on Saturday for the first Honoring Women Veterans Conference,” which is “co-sponsored by the Evansville Vet Center, the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University and The Women’s Hospital.” Sarah Paul, “nurse/readjustment counselor for the Evansville Vet Center,” said, “We want to honor” the military service of “and provide information about veterans’ benefits.”

10. Vet Pleased With VA Decision On Disability Benefits Related To Lejeune Water. In continuing coverage, the Jacksonville (NC) Daily News (6/22, Hodge) said a 68-year-old “veteran from Hampden, Mass., is the latest in a series of former Camp Lejeune residents to get full or partial disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs related to exposure to contaminated water aboard the base. Thomas McLaughlin…received a 30-percent disability grant in April for kidney cancer that more likely than not resulted from his residence aboard Lejeune’s Camp Geiger in 1962, according to the VA.” McLaughlin “told the Daily News Tuesday that he was pleased with his victory and wants to spread the word about aid available to affected veterans as far as he can.”