VA: System is Reaching Out to Vets

[unhappycamper]

VA: System is Reaching Out to Vets
May 17, 2008
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

James Peake, U.S. secretary of veterans affairs, said the department is monitoring the health of returning combat veterans carefully in an effort to ensure that their physical and mental needs can be met.

Peake was in Wichita for Friday's 75th-anniversary at the Robert J. Dole Department of Veterans Affairs Medical and Regional Office Center.

In an interview following his keynote speech, Peake said more than 300,000 of the 800,000 returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have already touched base with the VA.

"It's easy to identify the 1,300 to 3,000 seriously injured veterans," he said. "Those veterans require intensive case management. It is the thousands of others who may need services down the road that we are reaching out to, making sure they know what their benefits are."

He said the VA has expanded mental health services in anticipation of a wave of post-traumatic stress cases and has hired 3,800 new mental health providers.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/va-system-is-reaching-out-to-vets.html