Essay on "Veteran Access to Healthcare Services"

Essay 8 pages (2338 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

21). Reports from the field confirm these experiences across the country and these delays in access to healthcare will have inevitable long-term consequences for the veterans suffering from the profoundly debilitating effects of the "signature" injuries of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the VHA clinicians who are responsible for their care, and these issues are discussed further below.

Future Implications of Healthcare Service

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of these trends in the provision of healthcare services to disabled veterans is the fact that these problems are not a surprise and policymakers and healthcare providers alike have been acutely aware of the numbers of service members being deployed to combat areas in recent years for a long time. The overall saber-rattling levels on both sides may be diminishing after Osama bin Laden's death, but the troops with their boots on the ground in the Middle East are still experiencing the effects of IEDs on a daily basis, and the threat of suicide bombers will linger until the last American soldier leaves the Middle East. In this environment, it would just make good business sense to prepare for the inevitable human consequences of such foreign policy adventures on the armed forces that must prosecute them, but it would seem that combat veterans are paying a severely high price individually while lawmakers are only paying lip service to their needs.

The effects of this failure on the part of the U.S. government and healthcare administrators will have inevitable long-term implications on the delivery of healthcare services to the combat veteran population. Although there remains a lack of consensus concerning the precise numbers that are involved, current estimates indicate that the problem is going to become far worse before it will ever get better. In this regard, Burke, Degeneffe and Olney (2009) emphasize that, "The need to develop and facilitate specialized care and rehabilitative services for veterans impacted by this modern disability is of paramount importance. An estimated 22% of all Operation Iraqi and Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) combat injuries involve some form of brain damage [and] one in five service members who engaged in OIF/OEF military operations [will] develop PTSD or major depression" (2009, p. 5).

Because early interventions including the entire range of tertiary medical services available through the VHA healthcare network are essential to successful recovery, the longer combat veterans must wait for eligibility determinations to be processed by the VA and the longer it takes them to queue up in the VHA's already lengthy waiting lines, the more expensive the long-term treatment for these veterans will be, with corresponding disability compensation rates being required to be paid as well as a result. By failing to take the aggressive steps that are needed to ensure that claims are being processed efficiently and veterans are able to gain access to the healthcare services they need, the VA in general and the VHA in particular are failing to live up to their mandates to provide timely and effective healthcare services to the combat veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much and who have received so little in return.

Conclusion

Taken together, the review of the literature indicated that combat veterans returning from tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq frequency suffer from traumatic brain injuries and posttraumatic stress disorder, conditions that both demand early interventions and long-term care. Unfortunately, the research also indicated that the organization responsible for the provision of these healthcare services, the Department of Veterans Affairs, has apparently been overwhelmed by the increase in demand fir services. Like Thanksgiving or Christmas, though, this increase in demand is not a big surprise, but was rather a foreseeable consequence of the escalation of the Global War on Terrorism through the prosecution of two ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. By failing to prepare for these inevitable outcomes, the VA is also failing to live up to its stated motto to "To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan."

References

Burke, H.S., Degeneffe, C.E. & Olney, M.F. (2009). A new disability for rehabilitation counselors: Iraq War veterans with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Journal of Rehabilitation, 75(3), 5-7.

Gates, R.M. (2009, January 27). Submitted statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

U.S. Department of Defense Speeches, 37.

Medical centers. (2011). Department of Veterans Affairs. Retrieved from http://www.va.gov / health/MedicalCenters.asp.

Murray, P. (2011, March 31). Senator Murray chairs hearing on gaps in mental health care.

U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Retrieved from http://veterans.senate.gov / press-releases.cfm?action=release.display&release_id=d5f97d53-a5b3-4a88-b1c8-

d386abfaeb7d.

Profile of veterans. (2011). Department of Veterans Affairs. Retrieved from http://www.va.

gov/vetdata/docs/SpecialReports/Profile_of_Veterans_2009_FINAL.pdf.

Savitsky, L., Illingworth, M. & Dulaney, M. (2009). Civilian social work: Serving the military and veteran populations. Social Work, 54(4), 327-329.

Steele, D. (2010, May). Soldier's minds: No place for retreat. Army, 60(5), 36-37.

Veteran statistics. (2011). Department of Veterans Affairs. Retrieved from http://www.va.gov… READ MORE

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