What the audience at Monday night\u2019s Veterans Affairs town hall lacked in numbers, it made up for in volume.<\/p>\n
Only nine people (and not all were veterans) attended the event in Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, which was billed as a chance to discuss problems and seek solutions from the federal agency that handles benefits for military retirees. Most, however, took full advantage of the opportunity to talk about their problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is insane,\u201d James Helfinstine said, describing how the VA failed to transfer records he needed to make a medical appointment.<\/p>\n
When he flew down into Seattle for a specialty appointment, he arrived and found that the doctor didn\u2019t have the results of previous medical tests. Without those results, Helfinstine couldn\u2019t get his scheduled treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, all this money got wasted, including my time and the VA\u2019s time,\u201d he said. \u201cThere should be somebody who\u2019s keeping all the records together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Helfinstine said he\u2019s learned to keep his records on a CD and carry them with him, but he worries about other veterans who don\u2019t know how to navigate the system.<\/p>\n
Kevin Hassin offered comments that seemed to support Helfinstine\u2019s story. \u201cThe treatment we are getting at the outlying clinics \u2014 in my case, Juneau \u2014 those are working excellent,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere the failure is, is once you get beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barbara Bachmeier said the Alaska VA desperately needs to improve its medical care for women. She urged VA administrators to hire a doctor in Anchorage and devote her to women\u2019s health problems.<\/p>\n
Listening to that request at the front of the room was Linda Boyle, the interim director of the Alaska VA system. She said the VA is hiring a nurse practitioner to deal with women\u2019s health issues in Anchorage.<\/p>\n
Boyle, who served 25 years in the Air Force, said things aren\u2019t working perfectly, but \u201cthey\u2019re absolutely working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Alaska Native woman, who declined to give her name, said she was at the meeting to find out how to get veterans benefits for friends and family who need them.<\/p>\n
She described one man in danger of losing his home because he couldn\u2019t afford the taxes; she asked about a tax exemption given to veterans.<\/p>\n
About another man, a medic who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, she said she believes he suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder but won\u2019t get treatment. She asked what could be done to help him.<\/p>\n
As she was getting answers to those questions, Samuel Hudson, a spokesman for the Alaska VA system, said listening sessions like Monday\u2019s are held quarterly exactly for people like the woman.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re open to veterans and others who can \u201ctell us the problems so we can fix them,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what this is for. Let\u2019s identify them and hear about them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What the audience at Monday night\u2019s Veterans Affairs town hall lacked in numbers, it made up for in volume. Only nine people (and not all were veterans) attended the event in Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, which was billed as a chance to discuss problems and seek solutions from the federal agency that handles benefits for military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":30872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30871"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}