{"id":147553,"date":"2023-09-22T11:15:08","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T15:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=147553"},"modified":"2023-09-21T18:50:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T22:50:33","slug":"black-veteran-pushing-for-equal-care-at-va-medical-facilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=147553","title":{"rendered":"Black veteran pushing for equal care at VA medical facilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-141994\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting-333x333.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Veterans-Administration-Hospital-in-tropical-setting.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Steve Abrams experienced frustrations while obtaining care from a VA Medical Center. He described the doctors as &#8220;standoffish&#8221; and &#8220;threatened.&#8221; He said that the doctors, interacting with him, felt this way due to his race. He had to go through a few doctors before he could find someone who could properly treat him for his mental health and PTSD. Abrams points to a shortage of cultural competency on the medical staff&#8217;s part. The cultural barrier is both military and racial.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><b>From GBH:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I hear the stories and I work through those pains and issues,&#8221; he explained, &#8220;and I just help veterans breathe, as I have.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Abrams attributed the mistreatment of Black veterans, like himself, to a lack of cultural competency among health care providers. He said health care providers don&#8217;t always understand the military culture or racial culture. For example, he said Black people often express their feelings and stress in different ways than white people, and if a doctor doesn&#8217;t understand that, they can&#8217;t provide adequate treatment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need to see people who look like us. &#8230; We need the help of African American veterans, because we are standing in the way, right now, of people&#8217;s lives being progressed,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Black veterans have the highest disparities in health concerns. A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows that Black veterans are denied benefits at a higher rate. For PTSD disability claims specifically, 55% of Black veterans who applied for benefits were denied, compared to 44% for white veterans.<\/p>\n<p>Abrams clarified that even though these issues are ongoing, there have been significant improvements. The VA this summer announced a new equity team to assess why benefits are being distributed unequally and work to close those gaps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>GBH provides additional information <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgbh.org\/news\/health\/2023-09-20\/after-receiving-standoffish-treatment-one-black-veteran-is-pushing-for-equal-care\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Abrams experienced frustrations while obtaining care from a VA Medical Center. He described the doctors &hellip; <a title=\"Black veteran pushing for equal care at VA medical facilities\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=147553\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Black veteran pushing for equal care at VA medical facilities<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}