Click here to watch as Sen. Burr challenges VA on its lack of progress in this area and stresses the need for veterans to feel that the VA is responsive from the first contact between the veteran and VA.
Senator Burr’s opening statement can be viewed in its entirety here, and I encourage you to read a story that ran today in Politico about the hearing by clicking here. Excerpts of the story can be found below.
From Politico:
And when it was time for the VA to explain what it had done to deal with the wave of vets suffering from depression and PTSD, there was some clear frustration.
“How do you define timely [treatment] for a veteran with a gun in his mouth?” Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) asked William Schoenhard, the deputy undersecretary for health operations and management at the VA.
Schoenhard answered: “Instantaneously … our expectation would be immediate help,” he said.
Burr was less than satisfied by the responses. “Your opening statement … I heard it before, I just hadn’t heard it from you,” Burr explained, his voice booming.
“Please understand it does not work. There are gaps; there are holes. There are veterans who are falling through the gaps … and there are professionals who really didn’t give a damn,” Burr said as Sawyer and Williams nodded vigorously in the hearing room.
“I fear that your definition of timely and the frontline definition of timely is different. It is ‘whenever I have time to deal with it,’” Burr said.