VA's Hurricane Relief Efforts Extend Beyond Veterans

The American Legion met with VA leadership on Sept. 29 to learn what humanitarian aid VA is, and has been, providing to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Florida and Texas. "We have veteran homes in Puerto Rico that we're checking on and making sure we evacuate people if there's no air conditioning or power," VA Assistant Secretary of Operations, Security and Preparedness Donald P. Loren said. "The Virgin Islands took a big hit with Hurricane Irma. We took dialysis patients (not only veterans, but non-veterans as well), transferred them through Puerto Rico and then medevaced them back to the United States. We were coordinating the transfer and evacuation of medical cases from San Juan during Hurricane Irma."... "We'll assign people to where they are needed and get extra medical staff, water and food. Instead of being veteran clinics, these are now community-health facilities," Loren said. "There are 60 civilian hospitals in Puerto Rico, many of which are still inoperative, don't have power or have serious damage. There's only one hospital that is like the beacon in Puerto Rico and that is the VA medical center - seeing people, taking care of everybody we can and feeding everybody we can."...

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs officials provide situational awareness and coordinate recommendations to senior leadership inside VA's Integrated Operations Center. Credit The American Legion"We did a lot of preparing and started sending stuff down there before the hurricane. Now we're using these resources to take care of non-veterans and civilians until the hospitals - that are either damaged, incapable of operating or we don't know the condition of - come back into the system and then we'll transfer them. It is certainly necessary for a humanitarian effort like this," Loren said...Part of VA's mission is support national, state and local emergency management, public health, safety and homeland security efforts. VA Secretary David Shulkin announced last month that the department is making beds available to non-veteran nursing home residents affected by Hurricane Irma.

"The secretary has the authority to use any of our facilities for humanitarian effort and it's the right thing to do," Loren said. "After Hurricane Irma and the non-VA nursing home in Florida where nine people died because of no power or air conditioning, we were very much involved in helping to: take some of those people and put them in VA facilities, or get those people to other civilian hospitals that in fact could care for them. Of those people, only one of them was a veteran. Nobody knows that we did that - but that's what we do because this is a huge humanitarian effort and it's all for American citizens."...