VA Sued by Berkeley, CA Disabilty Group Over Failure to provide Mental Health Care

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Day to Day, June 18, 2008 · Berkeley-based Disability Rights Advocates filed a lawsuit that could affect thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. They allege that the Department of Veterans Affairs is unable to provide timely mental health treatment for returning veterans. It describes a backlog of 600,000 claims for vets seeking care — some dating all the way back to the Vietnam War.

From member station KQED, Scott Shafer reports.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91639452

According to the DAV Magazine, the official magazine of the DAV, the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs is concerned that all returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans will be stignatized as having PTSD and TBI.

Speaking before the last joint Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees to present the DAV Legislative Agenda, Commander Reynolds told the more than 500 DAV leaders attending that disabled veterans faced many challenges
on Capitol Hill. “But we are closer to reaching our goals, thanks to you and what you do.”

“As DAV leaders, you have a key role to play in our efforts - to call on our government to stand up for veterans.”

“Thousands and thousands of good and caring people at the VA go to work every day eager to help veterans,” Commander
Reynolds said. “They are counting on the DAV’s continuing support and advocacy for quality health care, timely claims adjudication, outstanding voluntary services and other programs.”

DAV National Adjutant Arthur H. Wilson, left, and National Commander Robert T. Reynolds, right, spend time with VA Secretary James B. Peake prior to the DAV Commanders and Adjutants business session.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs James B. Peake told the audience that the work of the DAV is “what America is all about”
and has amounted to an incredible legacy of service to our Veterans. Peake said he worried that returning war veterans would
be stigmatized as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI). “This relationship between TBI and PTSD is a real one,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re doing the right thing for them.”

Secretary Peake predicted that the lengthy delays in adjudicating claims made to the VA would decline from the current 182 days to 145 days by 2009, partly due to the 3,100 additional employees that will be hired under the current budget. “What we’ve got to do is fix the process,” he said.

Major Hanafin's note: I'm throwing the above out there without comment, something unusual for me. Suffice it to say that a picture says over 4000 words. Next time someone in the DAV tries to convince YOU that Veterans do not need a lawyer or legal assistance going up against the VA take a closer look at this photo op. Who you gonna call?

POINT: The DAV has passionately opposed Veterans having legal representation on par with Social Security disability and Workmen's Comp representation for other American workers who never served their nation. Wonder why? They and the other mainstream VSOs with their politically correct logos located in the lobby of ever VA Hospital, including Puerto Rico and even the Philippines want to retain the strangle hold they have over the VA system. What really urks me about this is that they continue to want to control the VA system, and that means with much more than their kindly volunteers even as Non-Profit Watchdog organizations are scrutinizing their fund raising practices. Either call for younger leadership of these old fashion VSOs at the minimum Gulf War Vets, but especially Iraq War Vets, and I do not mean Retired Generals and Admirals ala Walter Reed fiasco.

If the VSO leadership is set in their ways, younger Veterans are fools to trust them with your interests. Just because the leadership of these organizations claim Vietnam Veteran status, ask any Vietnam Veteran who really had to challenge the VA System what kind of reception or ear they got from the mainstream VSOs back in the day.

Bottom Line: Younger Veterans Organizations have to (1) Not become clones of these VSOs let alone join them, and (2) We need to create and train our own in-house VA Claims processing expertise (Veterans Service Officers), and lastly, (3) We need to focus ONLY on Veterans Issues NOT Foreign policy issues like how justified a war is or is not nor how Old Glory is protected or not. Over 4000 young Americans have given their lives to protect Old Glory, we sure as heck never need an Amendment to the Constitution.

Bobby Hanafin, SP/5, U.S. Army (69-76), Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, Military Families Speak Out (MFSO).

PS: I once was of the opinion that it was impractical and politically incorrect to have the logos of dissident Veterans and Military Family Activist Groups displayed proudly in any VA Hospital, but I'm coming to the Constitutional realization that having our logos proudly displayed in VA Hospitals, especially as we age and take over from this current crop of older leaders. THAT will go a long way to breaking the strangle hold mainstream VSOs have had on the VA since the end of Vietnam. I once saw VVA as a beakon in the night from such partisan control of the VA, but they have become just one more VFW, and American Legon clone.