New panel will focus on rural health issues

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New panel will focus on rural health issues
By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, February 24, 2008

WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs officials last week announced a new push to get better health care access for veterans in rural areas, a continuing challenge despite years of focus by the department.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake unveiled plans for a new advisory committee on rural health issues, designed to spearhead new programs and update policies to get doctors and other medical personnel to small towns across the country.

The move comes just weeks after the department more than doubled the mileage allowance given to disabled veterans who must travel to visit a physician and coincides with the end of the first full year of the department’s new office of rural health.

Kara Hawthorne, director of the office, said many of the access and availability issues the VA is dealing with aren’t unique to veterans.

“Retaining any work force in rural areas is difficult,” she said. “You’ve got young people leaving small towns to go to college and then get jobs, and often it’s difficult to entice them back. So we’re not the only agency struggling with those same health care problems.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52762