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MASSACHUSETTS VETERANS FIGHT FOR EMERGENCY CARE
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Vets are waging a battle to re-open the ER
at the Brockton VA Hospital.
Brockton VA
Story here...
http://enterprise.southofboston.com/
articles/2006/11/21/news/news/news01.txt
Story below:
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Vets fight for emergency care
By Jennifer Kovalich, Enterprise staff writer
BROCKTON — While men and women are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan,
war-tested veterans here are waging a battle to reopen the emergency
room at the Veterans Administration hospital on Belmont Street.
More than three dozen veterans turned out Monday night at City Hall
trying to rally support from politicians to oppose any cuts in services
at the Brockton campus of the VA Boston Healthcare System and to get the
emergency room there reopened.
“It's a life or death thing from here to West Roxbury,” said Tom Silveri,
a Whitman veteran.
The emergency room at the VA in Brockton was phased out in the late
1990s. The hospital offers around-the-clock urgent care, but some
veterans recently said they have been told to go to West Roxbury if they
need a doctor on the weekends or at night.
A VA spokeswoman earlier said officials want to curtail urgent-care
hours, but have not done so.
The City Council is expected to vote on a resolve to back the veterans
during its meeting next week.
Councilor-at-large Thomas Brophy told veterans he plans to expand the
resolve to ask the state congressional delegation to join the fight,
requesting that Congress fully fund VAs nationally and get the local ER
reopened.
Brophy said he personally suffered a loss when a friend who was a
veteran went to the VA with chest pains and could not be treated.
“He didn't make it,” Brophy said.
The local VA has no emergency room that can treat strokes, heart attacks
and other life-threatening conditions. One veteran said he had suffered
a similar loss.
Veterans such as Ed Ryan, a Vietnam veteran who is a member of the
Whitman Disabled American Veterans, said the former servicemen and women
want a local VA emergency room because they don't know when they are
going to need its services.
“We're walking time bombs,” Ryan said.
When Silveri went to the hospital in 2003 with an infection in his right
arm and a high fever, he was sent to the West Roxbury VA campus, he
said.
“I just want to see the VA get the emergency room back in the hospital
here. I feel they're taking away something good,” he said.
The local veterans have backing from state Rep. Anthony J. Verga,
D-Gloucester, who is the House chairman of the Joint Committee on
Veterans & Federal Affairs.
Sarah Keller-Likins, a legislative aide to Verga, read a letter that
Verga sent to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary James
Nicholson, opposing cuts in services.
“Veterans on the South Shore and across the commonwealth depend on the
services offered by the Brockton Urgent Care Center,” Verga wrote. “As
more and more of our newest veterans return home from the conflicts in
Iraq and Afghanistan, it is both puzzling and alarming that the Veterans
Administration could choose to cut back on its accessibility to vital
services.”
Ward 6 Councilor Michelle DuBois said that since January, the Brockton
Fire Department has been called 263 times to respond to the VA. Of those
calls, 218 have been for medical reasons. She said patients are taken
from the VA to a local emergency room or to West Roxbury for treatment.
Richard Hand of Brockton, who is the legislative director of the
Rockland American Legion post, told city officials that New England
needs at least six more VA emergency rooms to treat veterans. The region
at one time had 25, but that has dwindled to four, he said.
“What has happened to our commitment to be committed to our veterans?”
Hand said.
Jennifer Kovalich can be reached at
jkovalich@enterprisenews.com.
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Larry Scott
