VA TO HOST FORUM FOR WOMEN VETERANS
AMVETS to participate in summer summit on female veterans’ issues

WASHINGTON, April 1, 2010–This July, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will invite women veterans and veterans’ advocates such as AMVETS to a forum to discuss the quality of VA health care, benefits for women, and ways to improve access to the care and benefits for today’s women veterans.

In a statement from VA, officials said that this summer’s one-day forum will build on momentum from the 2008 quadrennial summit on women veterans’ issues in an effort to continually enhance services for today’s female veterans’ community.

“This forum will continue our identification of how best to serve this growing population of veterans through our quality health care, benefits for service-connected disabilities, mental health services, or supporting their community,” said VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. “We must constantly reevaluate and solicit input on our performance as measured against the needs of our women Veterans.”

Over the last few years, VA has undertaken major initiatives to transform the department to meet the needs of women veterans in a VA health care system that was designed to care for males.

Recognizing the unique needs of today’s veterans, AMVETS has made female veterans’ access to care one of its top legislative priorities for 2010, and AMVETS leaders said they look forward to participating in this summer’s VA summit.

To date, VA has already made significant improvements in caring for female veterans, but a recent Government Accountability Office report cited several persistent shortcomings that still need to be addressed, such as privacy issues and gender-specific sanitary needs.

Improvements VA has made to date include comprehensive primary care and specialized medical care at all VA medical centers, enhanced mental health care specifically for women veterans, women veterans program manager staffing at all VA medical centers, residencies on women’s health for primary care physicians, and comprehensive research programs on female veterans’ health.

The VA’s 2011 budget proposal provides $217.6 million to meet the gender-specific health care needs of women veterans, which includes funding to establish a 24-hour peer call center and a social networking Web site for women combat veterans.
Today, out of 23 million veterans nationwide, 1.8 million are women. By 2020, VA estimates that female veterans will constitute more than 10 percent of the total veterans’ population.