{"id":186765,"date":"2014-12-08T04:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T18:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=186765"},"modified":"2014-12-08T04:00:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T18:00:24","slug":"veterans-bemoan-healthcare-access-cnmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/veterans-bemoan-healthcare-access-cnmi\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans bemoan healthcare access in the CNMI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wayne<\/a>
Wayne Pfeffer, Veterans Affairs Pacific Islands Health Care System director, and Tracey Betts, director for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs\u2019 Honolulu Regional Office hold a town hall meeting with veterans at the American Memorial Park Thursday night. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nVeteran Affairs officials hosted a townhall meeting Thursday night at the American Memorial Park Visitors Center to \u201cconnect with veterans\u201d on island. Turnout out was strong, as were concerns about access to healthcare and benefits in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight is about listening to what you have to say,\u201d Tracey Betts, director for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs\u2019 Honolulu Regional Office, told the crowd.<\/p>\n

She explained why it was difficult for some to have their claims met. One veteran said he was fed up with being told, \u201cWe want more documents,\u201d for pain in his eyes and ears.<\/p>\n

Betts said in approving a claim, they ask for discharge documents, personnel records, and service treatment records, among other information, to make a decision whether one\u2019s healthcare need is current, aggravated, or presumptive.<\/p>\n

She said most of the time, because of lack of documents provided, claims sit in a pile called \u201cgathering evidence.\u201d She added, though, that the VA has gone out of its way to ask for such information and to corroborate what veterans may claim.<\/p>\n

A veteran who identified himself as John asked the VA officials to expand the office on Saipan. He called it \u201cso small\u201d that you could \u201chear all the dirty laundry\u201d spoken between the office\u2019s sole doctor and patient.<\/p>\n

One veteran asked a policy question on alternative medicine. According to him, he sent noni to his father, a veteran, who had cancer but he was told his father could be taken off his benefits if he continued with using noni.<\/p>\n

VA Pacific Islands Health Care System director Wayne Pfeffer clarified that alternative medicine was allowed, like acupuncture, for example, but at limited access. Things like medical marijuana, though, have not been authorized at the national level.<\/p>\n

A veteran named Joaquin described his genetic blood disorder, which requires him to have a therapeutic phlebotomy every two weeks to remove iron from his blood.<\/p>\n

He claimed he had to wait as long as three months once to get his treatment done from the hospital here.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo deal with CHC is the worst,\u201d he said. \u201cPlease help us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran Affairs officials hosted a townhall meeting Thursday night at the American Memorial Park Visitors…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":186772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[91,26,1164],"class_list":["post-186765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chc","tag-cnmi","tag-va"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186765","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}