CROWN POINT – An influx of female veterans has the U.S. Veterans Administration working to accommodate them with new facilities that provide more privacy and attention to issues unique to women.
The VA is building a 70,000-square-foot medical clinic in Crown Point that will offer a gender-specific waiting room and will be 75 percent larger than the 1988 facility it will replace. It is part of a broader VA plan launched in 2008 to add 44 new outpatient clinics to serve men and women returning from overseas.
Statistics show nearly 8 percent of veterans are women, including 33,000 in Indiana. But only 15 percent of female veterans use VA medical services, veterans officials say.
One reason is the lack of privacy. Another, veterans say, is that many women don’t know the services are available to them.
Kris Bertrand, women’s veterans coordinator for the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs, served in the Navy from 1989 to 1993.
“When I got out and you went to a VA center, they looked at you like, ‘You’re a woman,’ ” Bertrand said.
“Slowly, over time, you’re seeing them provide gender-specific services, though,” she said. “Today you’re seeing women on the front line, and the VA is getting better.”
The Adam Benjamin Jr. Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic in Crown Point serves more than 13,000 veterans, said director Jill Carley.
Female veterans also often confront issues of military sexual trauma and homelessness, said Bertrand, who lived in a homeless shelter for two years before moving to a veterans program she said wasn’t equipped to handle a female.
“You’re coming out of your comfort zone. You lose your support system groups when you leave the military,” she said. “Everyone’s moved on and you come back to a completely different environment.”
Monique Leyba, 31, a 13-year Army corporal, has had physical therapy at the Benjamin clinic after injuring her leg in a fall while stationed in Iraq for 15 months as a radio transmit operator.
She had been in pain since the fall but didn’t have a diagnosis until she met nurse practitioner Kelli Arnold at the clinic. Since then, the Valparaiso native has had surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and has undergone two months of physical therapy.
“She’s awesome,” Leyba said of Arnold. “You never hear anything good about the VA clinic, but so far, I have to say I really can’t complain about it.”
Krista Dora, 23, an Army veteran from Merrillville who spent 15 months near Baghdad, said the expansion of the clinic is “fantastic.”
She praised the decision to add services to the mental health facility, saying many female veterans need counseling for sexual assault, pregnancy and relationships upon their return.
But she said the VA should look beyond bricks and mortar and considering changing some policies.
“They need to get more females active to see what they have to say,” she said. “The politicians making the policies need to get feedback, and not just from the five-star generals sitting in an office. They need to talk to the privates and buck sergeants and listen to them.”
