Printer Friendly Page

CRISIS IN HEALTHCARE FOR VETERANS HITS HOME --

There is supposed to be a night home-health aide,

but the VA can't find anyone to do the work.

 

 

Story here... http://www.recordonline.com/
apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20070129/NEWS/701290322

Story below:

---------------

Crisis in health care for veterans hits home

The latest battle for Eddie Ryan

By Paul Brooks
Times Herald-Record

Ellenville - Hard days, sleepless nights. This is life after the Iraq War for one American warrior and his family. He is the first of Hudson Valley's sons to face this gantlet, but more are coming, the experts say — many more.

Angela Ryan sits on the couch, her face in her hands, exhaustion in the curve of her back.

The days pile on top of her — days when she hovers at the side of her wounded son, Eddie, giving him medicine, holding him, bathing him, as he fights to regain what he lost when a bullet smashed through the front of his brain in Iraq.

But it's the nights that grind her down and wear on her husband, Chris.

Nights she spends sitting in a chair in Eddie's room in their house on Wintish Road, on a mountain outside Ellenville. The "friendly fire" incident left the Marine sniper on the edge of death. Though he has regained much, he remains bed-ridden or in his wheelchair most of the time.

Angela sits up because it's harder to fall asleep that way. She can't fall asleep, not without someone else there to keep watch.

And there is no one else.

There is supposed to be a night home-health aide. But the woman pulled a muscle in her arm moving Eddie a week ago and can't work for a while. There is no one on weekend nights, either.

The agency hired by the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide the aides says it can't find substitutes. The Ryan home is too remote, and too few people want to do the work, says Christina Longinott, administrator of the agency, Willcare of the Hudson Valley. It's a problem for the whole health-care industry, she says. "We are doing absolutely as best as we can," she says. "Sometimes there is just not a person to send there."

Peter Potter, spokesman for the VA in Albany, says, "People are working on it. We will do whatever we have to do."

Eddie Ryan is the only person Willcare serves who needs such intensive round-the-clock care, Longinott said.

That worries Chris Ryan.

"What if another seriously wounded Marine comes into the area?" he asks. "They are not going to get the care they need."

There will be more. The Hudson Valley is well represented among the military on duty in the Middle East. Already, the area has lost 15 men to the war since 2003. Dozens more have come home injured.

Overall, more than 3,000 American servicemen and women have died in the fighting and another 22,000 have been seriously injured.

The VA "is buckling under a growing volume of disability claims and rising demand for medical attention. Thousands have "¦ crippling disabilities such as brain or spinal injuries," according to Harvard instructor Linda Bilmes.

The worst is yet to come, predicts Bilmes, who has studied the issue extensively. "Of the 1.4 million service members involved in the war effort from the beginning, 900,000 are still deployed on active duty. Once they are discharged, the demands for medical care and counseling will skyrocket."

Potter of the VA said the system is already gearing up for the influx. "We will be ready," he said.

In the meantime, the Ryans hope for relief. Chris helps with Eddie's care, but there is only so much he can do. The pay he earns as a machine operator in White Plains is the only income the family has left.

"I never expected it to be like this," Angela says. "No way."

---------------

Larry Scott

Don't forget to read all of today's VA News Flashes (click here)

Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage