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FEMALE VETS IN NEW MEXICO SAY THE VA IS POORLY-
EQUIPPED TO HANDLE THEIR NEEDS -- "But when you
find a lump in your body and you have to wait
six months
for an appointment, it tells you something is
wrong."
Story here...
http://www.santafenewmexican.
com/news/60976.html
Story below:
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New Mexico female veterans say VA is poorly
equipped to handle their needs
By MICHAEL GISICK | Associated Press / The Albuquerque Tribune
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - It happened at a Christmas party on a U.S. air base
in Germany in 1990.
Christin McKinley was a 20-year-old military police officer with the Air
Force, six months out of boot camp and eager to prove herself. In a few
weeks, her country and its allies would launch the first Gulf War.
She wanted, she says, to be one of the boys.
That night, one of the boys, a staff sergeant who was also one of her
supervisors, pulled her into a bathroom.
She told him no, she says, but he covered her mouth, pinned her down and
raped her.
Among the growing ranks of female veterans, McKinley, an Albuquerque
resident, is disturbingly far from alone. About 3,000 sexual assaults
were reported in the military last year, a 24 percent increase over
2005, according to a Department of Defense report issued in mid-March.
Of 188 women now being treated through a clinic for post-traumatic
stress disorder at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in
Albuquerque, between 80 and 90 percent report some kind of sexual trauma
while in the military, says clinic director Diane Castillo.
But McKinley, who works as a veterans employment representative with the
state Department of Labor and is president of New Mexico Women Veterans,
said the VA system remains poorly equipped to address the needs of
women, pointing to scaled-back services at a women's clinic at the
Albuquerque VA hospital.
"There are some good programs and some good people," she said. "But when
you find a lump (in your body) and you have to wait six months for an
appointment, it tells you something is wrong."
Although state officials say they're trying to help fill the void, the
Legislature this session failed to pass a bill that would have funded a
study on the needs of female vets.
Meanwhile, women are serving in the military like never before.
One in seven Americans deployed to Iraq is a woman. More than 450 women
have been wounded and 71 killed, more than the combined total for women
in Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf War.
Most studies on PTSD have focused on two groups _ civilian women who
have been sexually assaulted and male troops who've seen combat. Little
research has been done on a group Castillo sees emerging from the ranks
of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans _ women who've seen combat and been
sexually traumatized.
"Imagine being out there in a war zone, worrying about the enemy, and
then also having to worry about being raped by your own comrades. It's a
double stress," Castillo said. "There's nowhere to turn."
Echoing accounts from elsewhere in the country, Castillo said she's
talked to female vets who told her they took a gun to the latrine while
in Iraq because they were so fearful of sexual assault.
The military has launched several initiatives aimed at sexual assaults,
including a Web site that allows people to anonymously report attacks
and harassment, and the local VA says it's working to expand programs
aimed expressly at women.
But five times more male New Mexicans are enrolled in the VA system, and
McKinley said it remains an unpleasant and often unresponsive option for
many women.
Like others, she says the closure two years ago of a segregated,
full-service women's clinic at the hospital was a step in the wrong
direction.
Gerry Oakland, the business manager for primary care at the VA hospital,
said the decision to cancel the clinic came amid struggles to find
steady staffing.
Women can still go to the clinic for ob-gyn care, though they now go
through the same primary care network as men. Oakland said a nurse
practitioner has just been hired for the clinic in an effort to expand
services.
But McKinley said she's "not buying" the VA's explanation.
"I don't think staffing was the issue. I think it was mismanaged. Now,
they're telling us it was a budgetary issue," she said. "We're seeing an
expanding number of female vets and other states are opening women's
clinics. We're closing ours, and that's not acceptable."
Barbara Goldman, director of the Santa Fe Rape Crisis and Trauma
Treatment Center, said many women are hesitant to seek care through the
male-dominated VA system even when programs for women exist.
"There's an understandable reticence to look for help within the same
military culture in which you were victimized in the first place," she
said.
The Rape Crisis Center is one of several New Mexico organizations
outside the VA seeking to expand services for New Mexico's estimated
15,000 female veterans.
This year's Legislature approved $375,000 for the center to begin work
on a statewide outreach program for female veterans.
But a bill that would have tabbed $469,000 for a pilot program to study
the needs of female vets stalled in the House.
State Veterans Services Secretary John Garcia said the Legislature
appropriated money to hire five new veterans service officers. Two of
those, including one in Albuquerque, will be women, he said.
The department is also holding a conference on women's issues in June,
he said, and supporting the formation of a women's honor guard team. The
department helped form New Mexico Women Veterans.
Stepped-up efforts to care for female veterans only deal with the
end-result of the problem, and McKinley said she's dispirited by the
continued prevalence of sexual assault in the military.
She hears the question: Should women serve alongside men?
"I turn that around," she said. "This isn't women's fault. It's the men
who are doing this. They're the ones who need to change."
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Larry Scott --
