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WOMEN'S CARE AT BROCKTON VA LACKS STAFF --
As of last week, nine months after the
ribbon-cutting
ceremony, the center is still not open.
At the Brockton VA campus, a
women's treatment unit has not opened for lack of staffing. (GLOBE
FILE / 2004) |
For more about the troubled Brockton VA, use
the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=brockton&op=and
Story here...
http://www.boston.com/
news/local/articles/2007/09/09/wo
mens_care_at_va_lacks_staff/
Story below:
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Women's care at VA lacks staff
New clinic can't open; another is sidelined
By Emily Sweeney, Globe Staff
Last January, the VA Boston Healthcare System held a ribbon-cutting
ceremony at the Brockton VA campus to celebrate a new treatment center
for female veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress and substance
abuse disorders. Guest speakers hailed the innovative program as the
first of its kind. Cameras flashed and people applauded. But after the
crowds dispersed, the unit remained dark.
As of last week - nine months after the ribbon-cutting - the center is
still not open.
That is just one of the issues that worry a group overseeing women's
healthcare at local VA medical facilities. The group is also concerned
about the women's clinic at the Brockton VA campus. The clinic, which
serves 500 patients from across Southeastern Massachusetts, recently
closed temporarily.
Mary Jane Letizia, the former veterans agent for the town of Rockland
and a member of a VA advisory committee on women's health issues, wrote
a letter to the head of the VA Boston Healthcare System, stating her
concerns.
"As a woman veteran, I feel it would be disastrous for this clinic to
close its door," she wrote, in a letter dated Aug. 17. "It is a very
safe and comforting environment for women to have their medical needs
met."
The new unit for returning female soldiers is also essential, she said
in an interview. "These girls are coming back from Iraq . . . and
they've got real problems. They really need this. . . . It's really
sad."
VA officials say finding adequate staffing is the problem in both cases.
After the ribbon-cutting in January, "what has happened is that we've
run into difficulty in recruiting and hiring," said VA spokeswoman Diane
Keefe. The eight-bed residential rehab unit for women with
post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems will
eventually open, she said.
Finding suitable female mental health specialists to staff the unit
around the clock has been a challenge, said Keefe. "We're not going to
open a unit, not until we have the right staffing with the right
credentials to do it," she said.
She also said there are no plans to close the Women's Outpatient Unit.
It was shut down only temporarily because three main staff members, two
program coordinators, and its clinical director left around the same
time, and no one had been hired to take their place, she said.
"It's in a period of transition," she said. "When we have our staffing
back to the level that we need to be, we'll move their care back" to the
clinic.
Meanwhile, women can still get the same care as they always did at the
Brockton VA, said Keefe, but in a different building, not too far from
the Women's Outpatient Unit. And progress is being made on replacing
those three key staffers, according to Keefe: A VA nurse has been
promoted to serve as the acting head coordinator of women's care.
"She's working hard to get all clinical and support staff they need to
provide care in that location there," said Keefe.
No date has been set, but Keefe said the Women's Unit should be
reopening "soon."
"We're not closing anything. We just want to give everyone safe care,
and provide adequate staffing," said Keefe.
Meanwhile, a meeting will be planned to discuss the future of the VA
Boston Healthcare System and discuss consolidating the Bedford VA
services at the Brockton campus. That proposal is part of a larger
restructuring that has been in the works since 2002.
The fourth and final meeting of the panel charged with restructuring the
region's four US Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers will be
held Sept. 17 in the campus center ballroom at the University of
Massachusetts at Boston from 1 to 6:30 p.m.
Four options will be presented in detail, and the public will be welcome
to comment on them. (Under all four proposals, the Brockton VA hospital
would remain open.) For those seeking to submit comment on the proposals
online, Keefe said, "this is their last opportunity." The public will
also be welcome to give testimony at the meeting, she said.
As for the problem filling staff vacancies, said Keefe, anyone
interested in applying for one of the several open staff slots should
contact the VA network.
Patients have been identified for treatment in the eight-bed residential
ward, she said, but "we can't admit people to this ward until we're
staffed properly. . . . We have to recruit the right people . . . and
the right amount of people."
Comments relevant to the upcoming hearing may be submitted online at
www.va.gov/cares, or via mail to
VA Cares Studies - Boston Study, PO Box 1427 Washington Grove, MD
20880-1427. Anyone interested in applying for positions in the women's
treatment units should contact the human resources department at
774-826-1105.
Emily Sweeney can be reached at
esweeney@globe.com.
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Larry Scott --
