Wyden to seek support for women veterans

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Sen. Ron Wyden, left, speaks beside Max McIntosh, director of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics at SORCC in White City Wednesday.Jim Craven

April 09, 2009

By Paul Fattig

Mail Tribune

WHITE CITY — The ranks of women veterans are growing exponentially and need more support once they are no longer in the military.

That was the consensus of a round-table discussion Wednesday that included two dozen women veterans, advocates and officials at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and Clinics.

After listening to numerous women veterans air their concerns about the challenges of obtaining care for everything from combat stress to sexual abuse, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., concluded that a major change needs to take place at a national level. About 20 percent of the veterans are women, he noted.

"It is time to modernize the system," he said, although praising the staff at SORCC for its devotion and duty. "That would be the only way I could appropriately characterize it. The system was built for a different time and largely built for males.

"We now have to adopt a new policy to make sure no woman falls through the cracks."

In addition, Wyden announced that $1.83 million in stimulus package money has been earmarked for renovation at SORCC. About $1 million will be used for repairing the road system at the centers with the remainder going to building renovation, Wyden said, noting that those funds will have a multiple effect as they percolate through the community.

It is part of more than $7 million in stimulus money being awarded to VA facilities in the state, he said.

Earlier in the day, Wyden met with members of the local Oregon Army National Guard in Medford being deployed to Iraq early this summer. He called for increasing the period of federal pay that citizen soldiers and reservists receive upon returning home from 30 to 90 days so they have a "softer landing."

Some 600 members of the Guard's 1st Battalion of the 186th Infantry, headquartered in Ashland, will be deployed in June or July. Unlike regular Army soldiers, when they return home, they will no longer receive military pay after 30 days. They need the three-month period to decompress and find jobs, the senator said.

Yet the issue of female veterans took command during the discussion at SORCC. To a woman, the veterans made a point of expressing their appreciation for the facility.

But they appeared to agree with Dahna Dow, a health professional in charge of the women's trauma program at the SORCC.

"Women process trauma differently than males do," she told Wyden, noting their reaction can include everything from developing eating disorders to self-mutilation. As a result, they also require treatment, she said.

Navy veteran Deanna Bratton asked Wyden if some of the stimulus funds could be used to build more housing for inpatient women veterans.

Director Max McIntosh said there are adequate quarters for the demand. SORCC has fewer than a dozen inpatient women veterans, but has room for about 18, he said.

As the need arises, so will additional quarters, he said. SORCC has about 14,000 outpatients, including about 500 outpatient women veterans, he added.

Applegate Valley resident Stacy Bannerman, whose husband is serving in Iraq with a National Guard unit, asked the senator to support a national military family-leave act. It would require employers to provide an unpaid leave of 15 working days for the immediate family of a military person who has been mobilized for active duty for at least 180 days and who would be serving a hazardous duty role, she said.

She also is leading a retreat for women veterans this weekend in the Applegate.

Air Force veteran Tamara Jacobeson, who served in Panama and has combat post-traumatic stress disorder, was concerned that the experiential learning program for women veterans is being phased out.

"This domiciliary is the only domiciliary in the program which has that program," she said. "That program is being phased out. ... I do not want this place to lose the reputation it has across the country for being a top domiciliary."

The program is not being phased out, although it is being reviewed, McIntosh said.

"Part of the problem is getting a sufficient number of women enrolled at the same time," he said of women's programs.

But throughout the state, VA officials are working together to improve care for women veterans, he said, agreeing that more work needs to be done.

That needs to be a national goal, Wyden said.

"There has to be a policy of zero tolerance for neglecting women veterans," he concluded, noting that was a message he would take back to the nation's Capitol.

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

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