Veterans need access to health centers

By U.S. Senator Russ Feingold

Green Bay Press Gazette
January 23, 2008

As our newest generation of veterans returns home, they have to cope with a difficult set of challenges created by repeated long deployments.

More than ever, we need to make sure that these veterans, and the generations of veterans who have come before them, have ready access to counseling to help them deal with the challenges they face. For this reason, I am deeply troubled when I hear from some veterans in our state that our obligation to them is not being met because they have inadequate access to Vet Centers. Our country has an obligation to provide all veterans with access to the best care available. They deserve nothing less.

Thanks in part to the pioneering work of Vietnam veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has community-based counseling centers, otherwise known as Vet Centers, that are a successful way to reach out to veterans and their families struggling to adjust to civilian life. With Vet Centers in Madison and Milwaukee, most veterans in southeastern Wisconsin have a short trip if they are seeking counseling in a nonmedical setting. But Green Bay veterans have to fill up their gas tank and make the long drive south to Milwaukee just to visit a Vet Center. As a result, it's just not practical for Green Bay veterans to seek regular care at a Vet Center.

We are grateful for the two fine Vet Centers in our state, as they are an important way to expand our mental health services for veterans beyond the community-based outpatient clinics. But just two Vet Centers in Wisconsin cannot possibly serve our state's more than 469,000 veterans. Wisconsin ranks seventh-worst in the nation for veterans' access to these centers, with approximately 40 percent of Wisconsin veterans not having a Vet Center close enough for them to go on a regular basis. Moreover, none of the new centers the Department of Veterans Affairs plans to open this year would be built in Wisconsin. The lack of access to Vet Centers for veterans in Wisconsin is unacceptable and it's got to change.

To bring more Vet Centers to our state, I have led an effort, joined by U.S. Rep. Kagen and the entire Wisconsin congressional delegation, to urge the VA to open two additional Vet Centers, one in Brown County and the other in La Crosse County. Green Bay veterans no longer would have to travel to Milwaukee just to visit a Vet Center. Roughly 82 percent of Wisconsin veterans would be within an hour drive of a Vet Center if they were established in these counties.

I will continue to push the VA on this important issue. Wisconsin veterans and their families deserve reasonable access to necessary counseling in the welcoming, non-clinical environment that Vet Centers offer. It is our duty to ensure all veterans receive the best care possible. Anything less does not do justice to the sacrifices that generations of Americans have made for a grateful nation.



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