VA Doctors Said To Face Ethical Challenge When It Comes To Troubled Soldiers.   The Seattle Times (7/20, Bernton, 197K) reports that when Iraq veteran Tim Juneman, who hanged himself in March, "went to a Department of Veterans Affairs psychiatrist" two months earlier "to talk about his recurrent thoughts of suicide," his "biggest worry, according to notes taken by the VA psychiatrist, was a looming call back to active duty by the Washington National Guard," an order that "would have sent the specialist back to Iraq. A VA psychiatrist hospitalized Juneman but never notified the National Guard unit of his patient's distress over redeployment." Juneman's "death underscores an unsettling new reality for VA health-care providers. Unlike in decades past, they now often treat veterans headed back to war," and "this can pose an ethical challenge for VA doctors if they think PTSD, traumatic brain injury or other unhealed wounds could put a patient or others at greater risk on the front line." Jacqueline Hergert, "Juneman's mother, says the VA should have contacted the National Guard about her son's plight," but VA "officials say they must comply with privacy rules and are not required to share a veteran's health status with the Defense Department, according to a statement released by the VA in response to a Seattle Times inquiry."
Impact: Patient Privacy, Eastern Washington soldier suicide

Report Gives "Tepid Review" Of VA Healthcare For Women Vets.   In continuing coverage, the third item in Thomas L. Day's "Military Notebook" column for the Macon (GA) Telegraph (7/19) reported, "The Government Accountability Office, in a report released Thursday, gave a tepid review" of the Department of Veterans Affairs' healthcare "services for female veterans. In 2008," the VA "launched an effort to extend gender-specific services to women at every VA facility," and the "GAO, Congress' investigative arm, visited nine VA medical centers (including the Atlanta facility) for the report. 'The availability of specialized gender-specific services for women, including treatments after abnormal cervical cancer screenings and breast cancer, varied by service and facility,' the GAO reported." Day added, "The vast majority of patients treated" by the VA "are men, but the number of female veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is increasing."
      US News Weekly (7/17, Ruggeri), which also took note of the GAO report, said the House "unanimously passed a bill in June to address some of the inadequacies by, for example, requiring that the VA produce a report on the problems women face in the veterans' health system and creating a child care pilot program for women receiving VA healthcare."
Impact: Women’s Health Care, GAO Report