Of the almost 22 million veterans in the United States today, more than two million are women, and of those, over 635,000 are enrolled in the Department of Veterans Affairs system, double the number before 9/11. Women are the fastest growing group of veterans treated by the V.A., and projections show that women will make up over 16 percent of the country’s veterans by midcentury.
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Unfortunately, these veterans aren’t always getting the care they require from a system originally designed to serve mostly men. Women have health care needs that are distinct from men; cardiovascular disease, for example, plays out differently in the female body, and particular expertise is required when providers see women in their childbearing years. “For too long, the V.A. has essentially ignored many of the most pressing needs that our women veterans face,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said during a hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year.
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The problem is not will, it’s money. The V.A. has to care for all living veterans, and has encountered increased demand on every front, from nursing home beds to mental health care. The demographic challenge is daunting: dealing with a large population of aging Vietnam veterans just as over one million veterans are making the transition from the military back into civilian life, most after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Yes, increased funds will be needed,” says Dr. Sally Haskell, the V.A.’s deputy chief consultant for women’s health services. “We need to work to make sure that women veterans are being taken care of.”
But leaders of the V.A. have to choose between competing priorities. This summer, for example, they obtained extra funds to provide new drugs for hepatitis C, which is rampant among Vietnam veterans, after threatening to close facilities unless the dollars came through. They did not employ the same strong-arm tactics to obtain additional funding for new services for the young women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
