How can problems that have existed for decades at the Veterans Affairs medical facilities be corrected in a few months, even with proper funding? The VA could never help all veterans from past wars, with triple the amount of veterans and proper funding, at least 15 months is needed before any improvements will even be noticed. So where is the funding?
The VA could not meet the needs of all veterans from past wars and can NOT be expected to handle this increased case load PROPERLY for quite some time. There is a temporary partial solution available now: A few mental health professionals--GiveanHour.org-- are actually donating their office and a few hours a month to some of our young veterans. These are professional doctors who realize our new veteran's only need their expertise until the VA medical centers are properly funded enough to step into the 21st century.
Several law firms in Washington, DC and NY have offered their time, pro bono to help our new veterans through this slow broken system. Our local colleges can even help by offering in their paralegal courses a four credit class on "veteran benefits law". Many young veterans are still fighting a war to just receive proper medical treatment! Our medical community can END this war now. The knowledge our medical community has already received from veterans of past wars needs to be used now on this relatively very small percentage of society.
If just one-fourth of the more affluent private medical/mental health facilities used their offices and expertise just a few hours a month on our new veterans (pro-bono) every new veteran will have a chance to resume a comfortable life as a productive member of society. When society needs it, Attorneys have done pro-bono for centuries. Why are a few hours a month given to our young veterans (temporally) so hard a concept for the medical community to grasp when so much of the medical knowledge now available has come from the research done on our veterans and soldiers since WWI?
Even when their military career is over, our veterans are still one of the main contributor's to our society, and the whole world. Just Google medications and ailments used world wide since WWI and you will find hundreds of thousands of research projects and study groups that have been done on our veterans and soldiers of all ages.
The research includes family violence and dysfunction, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, many kinds of cancer, prosthetics, erectile dysfunction, etc... (I could fill up volumes here) and at the end of the research data it states: this research has been done by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs or Walter Reed Army Hospital, etc... (I could fill up volumes here again). This is great for society world wide and the medical community as a whole, but it is sad our new young Veterans still have to beg and grovel for proper medical treatment when most of the medical technology available today has come from our Soldier's and Veterans!!!
So where is the funding? For the fiscal year 2007 the Veterans budget was only 1.15%--one point one five percent of the federal budget. The VA budget was only 1.15% of the federal budget and it is still not even a required mandatory spending item in the federal budget. Why are we (veterans) STILL BEGGING??
