A veteran population projections report released by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in April last year reveals that from under 10 percent in 2010, the percentage of female veterans by 2040 is projected to be nearly 18 percent. Despite this, the VA appears to remain ill-equipped to efficiently attend to the needs of women veterans.
A review of internal documents of the VA, inspector general reports and interviews suggests that VA lags behind its commitment to meet the needs of women veterans returning from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An Associated Press review found that nearly one in every four VA hospitals nationwide lacks a full time gynecologist and despite the goal to have a designated women's health provider in every clinic, about 140 of the 920 community-based clinics that serve veterans that are based in rural areas do not have one.
It also takes time for female veterans before they can get their breast cancer screening results. When community-based clinics refer them to private medical facilities or universities for breast cancer screening, the mammogram results are seldom provided within the required two week period mandated under the policies of the VA.
Female veterans also tend to be placed on the VA Electronic Wait List compared with male veterans with new patients who cannot be scheduled for an appointment within 90 days being placed on the wait list.
Female veterans are likewise more likely to receive medications that can cause birth defects than women who avail of treatment from a private HMO. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, from the University of Pittsburgh and VA medical expert on reproductive health, said that one in every two female veterans receives birth defect causing medications from a VA pharmacy while only one in every six women who get treated through private healthcare system do and this raises concern as many new women veterans are of child-bearing age and more of them are on medication compared to women in the general population.
VA's head for women's health Patricia Hayes acknowledged that the problem with providing care for women veterans continues to persist despite more than $1.3 billion investment for gender-specific care since 2008 which has helped train hundreds of health professionals on the medical treatment of women.
"Are there problems? Yes," Hayes said. "The good news for our health care system is that as the number of women increases dramatically, we are going to continue to be able to adjust to these circumstances quickly."
