{"id":178150,"date":"2014-09-03T04:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T18:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=178150"},"modified":"2014-09-03T04:00:44","modified_gmt":"2014-09-02T18:00:44","slug":"va-town-hall-meeting-guam-later-nov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/va-town-hall-meeting-guam-later-nov\/","title":{"rendered":"VA town-hall meeting in Guam no later than Nov."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>HAG\u00c5T\u00d1A, Guam<\/strong>\u2014Following a recent directive from Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Aug. 5, 2014: \u201cAll Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare and benefits facilities\u201d are ordered to host town-hall meetings to \u201crebuild trust\u201d lost from the recent VA scandal and to \u201clisten and learn directly from those who use our system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The VA Pacific Islands Health Care System, or VAPHICS, will be hosting a town-hall meeting no later than November 2014, according to Craig Oswald, facility strategic planner for the VAPHICS. Although a date has not been determined, the VAPIHCS has confirmed that this town-hall meeting will encompass all VA agencies such as VAPIHCS Guam CBOC, Veterans Benefits Administration, Guam Vet Center, and Guam Veterans Affairs Office.<\/p>\n<p>A planning committee for the healthcare town-hall meeting is scheduled this month with Craig Oswald of VAPIHCS, John Unpingco of GVAO , Bill Cundiff of Veterans Commission, and other local veteran leaders on island.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are hundreds of veterans [in] Guam who have unanswered questions and concerns pertaining to the VA Healthcare System, and I am pleased that our local veterans will have the same opportunity given to all VA clinics to voice their needs at the upcoming town-hall meeting,\u201d said Sen. Frank B. Aguon Jr. \u201cThis town-hall meeting will be open to veterans\u2019 family members, veterans service organizations, non-governmental organizations and other community stakeholders. Participation is critical to begin fully addressing the needs of our veterans to the VA.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, some local veteran leaders in the community are spearheading a town-hall meeting as early as October 2014 and have garnered the support from federal, local, and non-governmental veterans\u2019 organizations. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HAG\u00c5T\u00d1A, Guam\u2014Following a recent directive from Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Aug. 5, 2014:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,1164],"class_list":["post-178150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-va"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}