Talk:United States Department of Veterans Affairs

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Contents 1 Personal appeal 2 DVA vs. DHS? 3 DVA Funding 4 Not sure about some of this info. 5 Headstones and graves 6 History 7 Security breach 8 No mention of medical care - wrong

[edit] Personal appeal

I would like to know if there is someone out there that would have the information I need regarding my father who is a disabled veteran from World War Two. Dad is 89 years old, and was injured in Africa in 1943. He had a brain injury, was sent to Sicily to a hospital. From there he was sent to Rome Georgia to another hospital. Somewhere along the line, dad was discharged from Rome Georgia. On his discharge papers it should have had a rating of Staff Sargent, but did not, and also he was a gunner and the information was not correct. He had never corrected these things, due to injury and illness during his life. Now that he is 89, it is very important for him to correct these things before he dies. How do I go about fixing this? Any information would be greatly appreciated... contact me at marytronti@hotmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.215.218.11 (talk • contribs) August 18, 2004

PBless606@aol.com I am a VA. I hurt myself while I was in the service after I wsa discharge I went to work at the VA and hurt myself again they took xrays and the xrays they took whileI was working at the VA will prove that I hurt my BACK while I was in the service but they are lost my na is Harry Pelham my email is Pbless606@aol.com.Some of my papers is all ready missing If you can help God bless you if you can't God bless you Thank you for your time 8454523224 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.161.118.161 (talk • contribs) December 1, 2006

[edit] DVA vs. DHS?

The article states that the DVA is the second-largest dept in the US govt, behind the DOD. However, I've heard the same said about DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security). Does anyone have any statistics to bear this out?--Mitsukai 16:40, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] DVA Funding

My mother works as a nursing supervisor for a VA hospital. She sees firsthand the funding problems that the DVA has. The hospital is badly understaffed, and increasing cutbacks are not only preventing the DVA from hiring new staff but also is resulting in many neccessary parts of the hospital being closed either during off hours or permanently. For example, recently they've taken to closing the pharmacy after I believe it's 6pm on weekdays. If a patient needs a specific medicine during off hours, the nursing supervisor has to search through four different medicine cabinets scattered across the hospital looking for it, then if they can't find it, call in a pharmacist from home (one of their pharmacists lives an hour from the hospital). Long story short, if a patient codes and is in dire need of a medicine, he or she is very likely SOL. I'll try to update this with more detailed information later, but if you could write to your senators and congressmen about this issue before it gets any worse.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.82.9.87 (talk • contribs) November 21, 2005

[edit] Not sure about some of this info.

I am 20% disabled and am not charged a penny for my medical care or prescriptions (what the VA asks of my private insurer, I don't know). I receive splendid treatment at the VA Medical Center, and am grateful to them -- and to my fellow taxpayers! -- for it!

Treatment is not just based on service-related disability as in my case, it is also provided to low-income Vets. Based on nothing more than a hunch, I think these form the bulk of VA healthcare recipients.

I think this article needs to be redone completely, with more verification of information.LTUSN 10:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Headstones and graves

What about the headstones and graves functions of the VA? I think it needs to be expanded past the link to United States National Cemetery.

• Burial and Memorial Benefits

--evrik 14:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

I came here hoping to learn about the VA's turnaround, from denigrated to admired. The VA's own site certainly isn't going to offer a balanced view of it's history. But the VA's entire 76-year history only gets three little paragraphs here. Can somebody fill this out better? Tysto 01:02, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, especially detail the importance of a person's wrist size. What conceivable difference could a veteran's wrist size do with VA treatment? Does wrist size determine the quality of care that a veteran can expect to receive at a VA facility? A real question at VAs, it's not farcical or rhetorical. These are VA hospitals, the doctors aren't on active duty, they don't need to amputate everything. Wrist size is thereby unimportant, isn't it? The VA sure isn't denigrated anymore, is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.157.39 (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Security breach

While not objecting to the coverage of the security breach in general, it is disproportionately covered in the article compared to the overall history of Veterans Affairs.Cander0000 22:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerning your comment on the United States Department of Veterans Affairs page about the laptop theft, why do you think that it is disproportionately large? It is a recent occurrence, one that could have jeopardized who knows how many veterans. And what kind of jeopardy are we talking about, just compromising credit card records? No, maybe more than that, maybe causing veterans to lose their jobs and residences. That should be avoided.

Now that we're in the electronic age, security breaches can get far worse than just stealing records out of filing cabinets. This one is worthy of comment, don't you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.153.128 (talk) 18:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting. Yes, I agree worthy of comment. In the overall scope of the topic, realize, this recent breach (on a word count basis) exceeds or roughly equals the "History", "Function" and "Organization" sections. It seems to be given undue weight. Cander0000 18:52, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the laptop theft was a terrible thing to happen. Enough cannot be said about the laxness of the VA. The word count of the veteran information contained on the laptop justifies its inclusion in this article.--76.244.163.160 (talk) 14:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this section belongs in some other article entirely. It's no longer fresh news, and it doesn't fit in with an encyclopedia entry on the VA. Maybe it could get a single line in the history section, but certainly no more. It also reflects the Wikipedia preoccupation with all things IT-related. The extension of the Walter Reed scandal to the VA medical system is arguably much more important to the central mission of the department, but it's not mentioned here because it's not about computers.Prodes111 (talk) 15:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I've pared down the breach information a bit and took out redundancy in a way that I believe does not compromise the content. In regard to Walter Reed ... that was the Army, it has absolutely nothing to do with VA. The DoD and VA are two totally distinct entities and unless you can prove that there is some sort of ripple effect it should stay out of this article. I think we're approaching the point where we can remove the "limited" tag from the article. Comments?152.132.10.128 (talk) 20:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No comments? I'm taking the "limited" tag out in a week unless someone objects152.132.10.128 (talk) 22:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

No dissent was voiced and I've been asking for comments for several weeks now. I took out the "limited" tag. 152.132.10.128 (talk) 19:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No mention of medical care - wrong

Another user had written "Medical care, which is among free U.S. services for veterans, is not among the benefits in the first screen on the agency's home page." Well yes, but in the left-hand column, "Health Care" has its very own tab, and it is listed separately -above- "Benefits." Hence my removal of a misleading statement.

(the page in question is http://www.va.gov/landing_vba.htm) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.31.9.18 (talk) 00:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)