By Emily Wax
Women are streaming home from war and through Department of Veterans Affairs doors in record numbers. But a health care system that for generations catered almost exclusively to men has been slow to recognize that the 2.3 million female veterans represent the fastest-growing population turning to the agency. In numerous ways, the VA is struggling to address the urgent needs of these women for medical and mental health services.
VA hospitals and clinics don’t offer prenatal care; instead they outsource it. And they don’t deliver babies. Dozens of VA facilities don’t have full-time gynecologists, and some don’t have any gynecological staff.
Even for basic female wellness services, such as mammograms, some facilities have to refer women elsewhere.
There is also a severe shortage of VA mental health therapists who are women, an especially pressing problem for female veterans trying to come to terms with sexual assaults suffered in the military.
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