By Amaani Lyle
American Forces Press Service
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., April 18, 2014 – The senior enlisted
advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited city hall, a
veterans center and a Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic here yesterday to
learn about how veterans, citizens and elected officials take care of current
and former military members.
At city hall, Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Bryan B. Battaglia met
with Mayor Alvin Brown and his staff to discuss veteran matters, with a
particular focus on the homeless and disabled population.
“Through grants and partnerships, our team has been able to
provide emergency financial assistance to veterans for rent, utilities, food
and clothing,” said Harrison Conyers, the city’s veterans and community
outreach manager. “We help people who need immediate assistance and who we
can’t just refer out –- we’ve got to take care of ourselves.”
Conyers explained that his department develops monthly
career exercises, ongoing resume and state workforce board assistance, free tax
preparation and more.
“We’ve been able to expand what we’re doing without
impacting the taxpayers,” he said. “In a short time, we’ve pretty much doubled
the services we can provide to veterans.”
With Jacksonville’s densely populated veteran community, the
need for assistance never wanes, said Victor Guillory, director of military
affairs and veterans department in the mayor’s office.
“Through the generosity of grants and the local communities,
we have funds to help veterans stay in their homes,” he said.
But the mayor’s office, Guillory noted, also works closely
with the Five Star Veterans Center, a community resource and transitional
center for veterans who need additional help maintaining a homestead. The
facility holds 22 residents who are in various stages of phased rehabilitation
customized for their situations.
The residents get a safe place to sleep, a continental
breakfast, soup and a sandwich for lunch and a hot meal for dinner, said
retired Marine Corps Col. Len Loving, the center’s chief executive officer.
The first phase involves an agreement to remain on the
premises, abide by the rules and garner the necessary resume and computer
training, Loving said. From there, the center’s staff works with local VA
officials to assess residents’ physical and psychological issues before
connecting them to a caseworker for further individual assistance, he said.
“The resident will need to develop short- and long-term goals and commit to
part-time school and work or full-time work,” he added.
The center’s staff and volunteers work with employers to
identify issues, and they help the residents correct them to establish a
steady, reliable work ethic.
Fourth phase residents have about three months to set up a
bank or credit union account and develop an exit plan for independent living.
“We hope they’ll save enough to have about two months of
expenses when they walk out of here,” Loving said. “We help them with a care
package of clothing and furniture, and even tap into VA programs so they can
handle their own expenses.”
Loving said that in his experience with thousands of
veterans, there is typically a three-to-four-year delay after service before
veterans who need help truly realize that they do. And the abrupt shift from a
high-intensity environment to one of day-to-day life maintenance activities can
be harrowing for those who suffer from post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain
injury, he added.
If compounded with financial problems stemming from divorce,
alimony or child support issues, the perfect storm and downward spiral
intensifies, he said.
“If a military member gets a divorce while on active duty, a
judge typically bases child support payments on their salary at that time,
which becomes significantly reduced once they’re no longer in service,” Loving
noted. And in Florida, he added, nonpayment of child support results in a
driver’s license suspension.
Loving said he has received offers from lawyers to help
veterans free of charge to manage child support payments and ask judges to
grant restricted licenses for veterans to commute to work or school.
One resident said he confided in Battaglia to share his
experiences and challenges with him during the visit.
“The sergeant major is a damn good Marine,” the resident
said. “He’s a lot more knowledgeable and more open to listen to us than any
other officer or enlisted person I’ve ever met.”
But as a growing number of veterans require ongoing medical
and mental health care, the need for quality facilities to take care of them
increases as well. The VA outpatient clinic here is “more than a doctor’s
office, but short of a hospital,” said Dr. R. Daniel Morgann, chief medical
officer. But the staff is trained to deal with emergencies, he added.
This clinic has about 37,000 patients in its care, and the
staff sees 1,200 to 1,500 patients daily. Morgann said the VA’s unique mission
there called for specialized design and planning.
“We wanted to make sure there was intimacy, but there was
also a lot of space,” Morgann said. “We didn’t want anyone to feel corralled.”
The clinic, he explained, provides a broad range of general
and specialized medical, dental, surgical, psychiatric, nursing and ancillary
services and serves acute and chronically ill eligible veterans, without them
having to visit more remote VA facilities.
“Our veterans require care that runs the gamut from minor
health care needs to urgent care,” the doctor said, but he noted the clinic can
stabilize veterans with physical or mental issues before transferring them to
either local facilities or to the Gainesville or Lake City VA Medical Centers.
The doctor said he learned early on the disparity between
business and care when it came to medicine.
“The VA was a way for me to deliver care and focus on the
patients, not revenue,” he said. “The idea is to reduce costs through
innovation, but not at the expense of quality, accessibility and personalized
interaction.”
And while telemedicine -- remote, computerized patient care
-- is a burgeoning technology that can expedite and facilitate some medical
needs and therapies, Morgann said, it shouldn’t completely replace in-person
engagement and care with veterans.
“We can leverage this technology, but we have to do it where
and when it is smart,” he said.
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