VA in crisis again

VA in Crisis
Tuesday, December 25, 2007, 10:01 PM
By Bob Priddy
Missouri's top veterans official says the Veterans Administration is in crisis again.

Executive director Hal Dulle of the state veterans commission says too many veterans have to wait too long to be accepted in the Veterans Administration system and then have to wait too long to get the medical help they need.

He says, his office works to get veterans to file for their benefits but the VA lacks the personnel to handle the paperwork efficiently. Dulle says the system isn't broken. He says it just doesn't have enough people to handle the increased number of veterans applying for services. The heavy burden is caused by an influx of Gulf war veterans seeking benefits at the same time many Vietnam veterans have decided after 40 years of not being involved...to sign up.

But once the paperwork is processed and the veteran is in the system----there's a lack of doctors. Dulle says part of that problem is that the VA has limited funds...and in a competitive world, the VA has trouble paying enough to keep the specialists the veterans want to see from going into private practice.
click post title for the rest


Why is it that when I read something like this I wonder what the hell have I been working for the last 25 years for? Why did I ever think that all that was needed was to get especially Vietnam veterans to seek help for PTSD like my husband did and the problem would be solved?

I've found so much hope over the last two years that the stigma of PTSD would finally dissolve because the media finally paid attention to it. I've never seen so many reports on PTSD and I was glad that I could see the end in what I do. What good has any of it done when people like me can get them to go for help and find that it isn't there for them? How long is this going to go on? How many more years can they be still paying the price for their service ending up being tortured by the system that was supposedly designed to help them?

I read almost every report coming out on PTSD from state to state and across the globe and right now I feel as if it has been one gigantic waste of time. All these years gone for what? Am I pissed off? You bet I am.

I got into all of this so that no other veteran or family of a PTSD would have to suffer needlessly. I expected a lot more out of this nation thinking that once the problem was known, this grateful nation would actually finally step up and prove it. What a fool I was! Years ago there was an excuse but that was so long ago you would think someone with the power to fix this system would have done it by now. You would think that the people in charge would finally live up to what they have claimed. You would also think that common sense and common decency would have caused monumental changes but then you would also have to think that all the elected actually deserve to have been elected to do their jobs.

We put up with men like Senator Larry Craig sitting on the committee and fighting tooth and nail against what veterans in this country need. What happened to him? Did they try to get him off the committee when his record showed he was not putting the interests of wounded veterans first? No. He got the boot from seeking sex in a bathroom stall from another guy who turned out to be an undercover cop. We put up with someone like Nicholson who not only allowed the VA to be under-funded but actually returned millions unused! When the GOP controlled all the committees we put up with their rants of whining over money they didn't want to spend at the same time they didn't bat a eyelash over the hundreds of billions Bush was asking for to make them wounded combat veterans. We also had to put up with the near silence of the Democrats who didn't think it was necessary to alert the media on the seriousness of any of this. Now they have the power they do not use it! Sure they took on Bush and the GOP to get these programs funded by they caved in on what is really needed and necessary. We need emergency funds and changes now, not years down the line only. They can build all the VA hospitals they want but unless they ramp up getting Veterans Centers operational, they will need even more hospitals and homeless shelters for the veterans they do not take care of today.

This is all bullshit! Who the hell is going to take care of the veterans I get to go for help?

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Namguardianangel.blogspot.com
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington