Last Thursday, Dr. Patricia Hayes, Chief Consultant for Women Veterans Health, and Stacy Garrett-Ray, Deputy Director for Patient Care Services, held the first of what will be monthly roundtables on women Veterans healthcare. You can check out VA’s live tweeting of the event here, by scrolling down to the entries from May 12th.
VA wants a change in culture, as Dr. Hayes points out in the Army Times:
Hayes said she has seen the VA expand its services to care for female troops since her appointment in 2007. And the number of women in the armed forces today means the department must continue to improve its care in the future, she said.
To find out the services and programs available to you as a female Veteran, visit the Women Veterans Health Care webpage.
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Being a female veteran, I have no idea where you’re getting your information. I stand in the same long lines, and wait in the same dank waiting rooms as all the males. I get no special treatment. ALL Vets are treated like CRAP!!
I would add that this is even counter productive to Veterans health care. This roundtable seeks to divide Veterans, creating a male-female war, where men are upset because the minority female Vets get an hour with their doctor, while male Vets get maybe 2 minutes. Of course, the goal of the VA is to keep up the squabbling between Vets groups, so that Veterans will not become a united force for the VA to reckon with. The VA’s “divide and conquer Vets” strategy, so far, has worked, which includes things like Iraq Veterans comp claims having priority over Vietnam Vets. This is, in part, why the average VA employee gets about $67,000 per year, while the average disabled Vet gets about $10,000 per year. Of course, VA employees got their raises (Cola) this year, while disabled Vets got zero Cola exacerbating the problem.
Your Statement is so far from true. Where do you have the raw data to support such statements. Women veterans don’t even have a breast exam machine. If you have concerns take with up with the existing Veteran Service Organizations that have been operating on your behalf for the past 100 years. The stats show that women are serving in the military 4 times more than ever in our nations history. The male veteran is represented very will in most veteran service organizations.
Tara Wise
Founder
National Women Veterans Association of America
Mrs. Wise, ive dealt with you before! As far as medical care, in 2004 i was a high gyn risk. I was given a pap and a preventative measures were taken for me. The health care is there. You have gone out of your way personally to make female combatants and vets look weak and inept. You have personally attacked us on our lioness page, you have blasted us on your own personal page, you have even threatened me with police action if i dont stop digging into your orginization and what i find suspicious. Your radical discrimination and your sexism does sit well with many of us vets. Male or female alike. We have had enough! You used high heels, hair dos and nail jobs as a reason that women sacrifice more in the army than men! How shallow! My husband sacrificed the first year of his first born daughter. Spare me, Mrs. Wise. You can treaten me all you’d like. Send the FBI. Make as many phone calls as you say you will do to have the police sent to my house. A woman that is set to represent other female vetsLe should be open minded, should be able to see all points of vets everywhere. However you choose to catagorize us all into this group of weak and emotional and pathetic beings because we have filiopian tubes.. Id gladly take mine out to choke women that take away all the grit, the honor and the hard work that we female sdiers have fought for! I was a soldier, i am a woman, i am a mother, i am a wife, i am Lioness! HEAR ME ROAR!
This is typical VA propaganda, designed to garner votes for politicians, and do nothing for Vets. At my VA, the women Vets go into an uncrowded, well decorated room to visit their health care provider, while male Vets get in long lines, waiting in overcrowded stale waiting rooms to get their 2 minutes with a doc who barely speaks English who writes a prescription online.
Women Vets already get far superior care to Male Vets, mostly because there are far more men. But health care for female Vets is politically popular, so the VA is on it. The male Vets can just keep waiting in the million man backlog, for all the VA cares.
I think everyone is standing in line. Not just the males!! The VA has a very long backlog, whether it be male or female. Please don’t try to drive another nail between our brothers and sisters. They are BOTH fighting fo the same thing!
They are standing side by side on the battlefield, for probably the first time in history, and many of these women have fought to get there with their brothers, don’t patronize them. Just because you are a FEMALE in combat doesn’t mean you get special treatment over the men. Yes, there are some who believe that, but most just wanted to be treated as equals and not felt they deserve any special treatment because they are women. Most of the women I know that have been OEF/OIF are some amazing, strong women. Treat them with the respect they deserve!!!!