American Veterans - Karen's Story

As a 15 year veteran of the Navy, Karen Key shares her healthcare experience.

Karen Key: Basically, my health care issues are okay right now, but some of the areas that I'm being told by other veterans, females is that there's a little bit of prejudism still going on with the females and there isn't enough healthcare for women in the VA system right now. They only have one major hospital that takes woman veterans and that's in Seattle. And then in our local area well, where I live at, which is out in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, we have more of a unique issue of transportation issues, because of the ferries, we are two-and-a-half hours out of our main VA facilities, and we have to deal with traffic, ferries, problems like that. And we have senior citizens that have a very difficult time getting there. Of course we do have some vans that transport them there. But I could say we need a facility up there on the Olympic Peninsula that's going to be even more giving to our veteran center, what we have right now which is a virtual clinic that just got started which is really awesome, but we really need to have a major facility there and on the Olympic Peninsula as well. Her Healthcare Experience. Karen Key: I have a little bit of issue with depression that I suffer from for a lot of years, while I was in the service, outside the service, I still deal with it. First I had a knee injury and a hip injury when I was in the service. And I have a asthma and few other issues that are still pending with the VME appellate court. So I'm not completely there yet on the rest of it. But those are the issues that I deal with on a continuous basis. I believe I've received probably excellent care considering my situation. The only issue I've had is trying to get into the orthopedic clinic for an ankle injury that I sustained a couple of years ago. And understandably, the veterans coming home today need to be seen as a priority to understand that. But there's issues trying to get into the clinic because of that. But other than that I think I've had excellent care. Changes She Wants to See. Mandatory funding would be a great thing for the VA system. All these veterans suffer the set back with mandatory funding not being there for us, and that's the issue that I think every veteran needs to get behind. We're in jeopardy of losing our benefits and that's an issue that all of us need to stand behind as well.