One-hundred and seventy-six billion dollars; that’s how much of your tax dollars will be spent by the Department of Veterans Affairs this year.
While wait times for local vets has gotten better in recent years, VA leaders admitted they still have a long way to go.
Thomas Leonard served three years in the U.S. Army in the 1970s.
After hanging up his uniform, night terrors keep him up, and he’s been combating PTSD for years.
Leonard, like many military members, leans on the VA for help. For some, it’s their only hope.
“There are too many veterans committing suicide because of PTSD,” Leonard said.
According to a new report, in the last two years, the wait time for a mental health appointment in the VA is around 4.5 days.
More and more veterans are utilizing VA services. Around 9 million veterans were enrolled in VA health care by the end of 2016, compared to around 7.8 million enrolled in 2009.
Last year, Action News Jax spoke with Thomas Wisnieski, the director of North Florida South Georgia Veterans’ Health System about local wait times, including VA Choice.
“We're certainly not happy with that and we're working with that,” Wisnieski said.
For a primary-care appointment, the wait time went down one day from 6.7 days in 2014 to 5.7 days last year.
Around 93 percent of medical appointments are being scheduled within 30 days.
The main VA clinic in Jacksonville still holds the worst wait time in the state, where 14.09 percent of appointments are taking longer than 30 days.
Cox Media Group
