FEINGOLD
LAUDS VA DECISION TO OPEN BROWN COUNTY VET CENTER
Vet Center Approved Following Feingold-Led Effort to Secure a Facility
for Brown County
July 9, 2008
Washington, D.C. –
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is hailing an announcement by the
Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) that it will open an additional Vet
Center in Brown County, Wisconsin. Late last year, Feingold led an effort
by the Wisconsin congressional delegation urging the VA to open a Vet
Center in Brown County. The VA’s announcement comes at a time
when approximately 40 percent of Wisconsin veterans do not live close
enough to a Vet Center to obtain needed counseling on a regular basis.
“I am very pleased
that significantly more Wisconsin veterans and their families will have
access to assistance when this Vet Center opens in Brown County,”
Feingold said. “During this time of incredible strain on members
of the Armed Forces, it is extremely important that we provide support
to veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families
while we continue to provide services to the generations of veterans
who served in previous wars. These veterans are struggling with alarming
rates of post traumatic stress disorder and other mental health concerns,
yet most never seek care. This Vet Center will conduct outreach and
offer counseling to ensure veterans are getting the health care and
benefits they need in order to readjust to civilian life."
Vet Centers provide counseling
in a non-medical setting to complement the services provided in VA medical
centers and outpatient clinics. Currently, Wisconsin only has two Vet
Centers, both in the southern part of the state. States with similar
veteran populations have more than double this number of Vet Centers.
Maryland, for example, has fewer veterans than Wisconsin and is one
fifth its size but will soon have seven Vet Centers. Massachusetts is
about one eighth the size of Wisconsin, and has only a slightly larger
veteran population, but it has seven Vet Centers. While an additional
Vet Center in Brown County will help to better serve the over 469,000
veterans who live in Wisconsin, an additional center in La Crosse County,
which Senator Feingold and the Wisconsin delegation also requested,
would ensure that roughly 82 percent of Wisconsin veterans reside within
an hour’s drive of a Vet Center.
“While I am pleased
an additional center will be built in Wisconsin, I will continue to
work with the VA until all Wisconsin veterans and their families have
access to a Vet Center,” Feingold said. “For all our veterans
have given to our country, we should be constantly working to make sure
they have adequate access to the care and benefits they have more than
earned. |
