 Margaret Ervin, Regional Veterans Coordinator, Sutter Care at Home spoke about the “We Honor Veterans” program. The Sutter "Care at Home" is primarily a hospice program and Margaret is a Sutter Hospice social worker and a veteran. She has been working with Sutter to train more of its staff to deal better with veterans. Now when people check in at a Sutter clinic they get asked the questions: "Are you a veteran?", and "Are you VA enrolled?" Staff are trained that they don't need to be a vet to relate to a vet. Margaret has dealt with 4 Vietnam Vets in hospice recently and all of them had illnesses that were agent orange related. Enrolling in the VA can lead to many benefits for the vet, including allowing the use of a skilled nursing facility, if needed, when in hospice. Every county in the state has a "Stand Down" event to help and honor veterans, particularly homeless vets. The Veterans Center of Placerville is sponsoring one soon for EDC. Services provided to vets include a haircut, hygeine products and a massage. San Diego County has 800 homeless vets. One of the issues in getting vets to enroll in the VA is that they don't have or can't find a copy of their DD 214 form which is their Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty. It is usually able to be found online and various groups will help the vet with finding that. In the Q&A period, Margaret let us know that there is no connection between DoD computers and VA computers, to communicate that the honorably discharged vet is now eligible for VA benefits. She also noted that when a homeless person claims to be a vet, there is a vetting process that can usually distinguish when that claim is legitimate. |
