'They're stalling me until I die'

[unhappycamper]

'They're stalling me until I die'
MARK LARABEE
The Oregonian



As he shifts his weight over his cluttered desk and hoists himself on his feet, John D. Atkins lets out a wail.

The pain in his back is so great that tears well up in his eyes and his hands shake. Breathing hard, he turns and stumbles, reaching for a cane that lies across his double bed.

Eventually, from the dresser he grabs a miniature bottle of Cutty Sark scotch from among a dozen pill bottles. Then he smiles.

The 60-year-old Vietnam veteran said he self-medicates when doctor-prescribed morphine pills aren't doing the trick.

Atkins, a Lake Oswego resident and former U.S. Marine with late-stage leukemia, is one of more than 400,000 military veterans fighting for financial help from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Although he receives monthly disability payments, Atkins has been in a paperwork dispute with the VA for almost three years over whether he should receive thousands more to pay for home nursing care.

"They're stalling me until I die," he said. "I've accused them of that many times."

R.C. Hammond, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said that 500 to 750 veterans contact the senator's office for help each year and that 80 percent of the complaints are about delays in claims processing. In Atkins' case, the Veterans Benefits Administration -- the arm of the VA that deals with pension and disability payments -- assured Smith's office in March that the terminally ill vet's application would be expedited.

But the money hasn't come yet, and Atkins now faces eviction as his landlord, a nurse in the Navy Reserve, has been deployed to a hospital in Germany. He's signed his life insurance over to his best friend, to whom he owes $40,000. And he's maxed out all seven of his credit cards.

Rachelle Hershinow, spokeswoman for the Veterans Benefits Administration in Portland, said the agency is trying to work through the admittedly confusing red tape. "It's pretty complicated," Hershinow said, speaking with The Oregonian after Atkins gave her permission to talk about his case.

But it seems relatively simple to Atkins. While he gets blood transfusions every six weeks to stave off the terminal cancer attacking his bone marrow, he fights the government for benefits he believes are long overdue.

"I won't quit," Atkins said of his battle with the government. "I'm not going to roll over, throw all four up in the air and say 'I'm done.' "

Back pain crippling

Vietnam firefights didn't kill Atkins, though he says he was wounded twice in battle: once when a mortar exploded and once when he was stabbed with a bayonet. He came home from the war in 1967 on a stretcher after being knocked off his feet by colitis.

Chronic back pain -- caused, he says, from lifting heavy boxes as a young Marine at Camp Pendleton, Calif. -- keeps him off his feet most of the time. Atkins attributes his own leukemia to Agent Orange, the notorious jungle-thinning defoliant that sickened thousands of Vietnam veterans. He's now housebound for the most part.

Over the years, the physical and financial strain took the best out of four marriages. Three ended in divorce and the other ended when his third wife died of leukemia. In 2002, he went to jail for assaulting a police officer who had come to his home during a domestic dispute. Atkins makes no excuses for it but said he had a flashback when the officer approached him.

The VA agreed in January 2005 that Atkins' illnesses were connected to his military service. Among other things, he became eligible for "special monthly compensation," which pays for things such as home nursing care. He already receives $2,560 a month in disability benefits but argues he deserves another $6,000 or more to pay for home nursing care.

The agency, he said, has stonewalled his request. On the back porch of the Lake Oswego home where he rents a bedroom, Atkins leafs through a file folder of paperwork, letters and forms that detail the back and forth over his claim.

Bureaucratic notices from the VBA ask him to clarify his needs. The paperwork is not in layman's terms and rarely includes a phone number or name of a caseworker.

In a March 7 letter to the agency, Atkins' frustration with the paperwork shuffle shows. He put his needs bluntly: "I am unable to fend for myself -- cook, clean, shower or wipe my own butt."

Red tape, of course, is legendary within the VA. It's a constant complaint among veterans across the country.

As of last week, there were 400,786 veterans waiting for the Veterans Benefits Administration to process their claims for monetary compensation, VA spokesman Terry Jemison said. Those claims, represent the agency's "most complicated types of financial cases," he said, ranging from veterans seeking decisions on service-connected disability or pension payments to survivors seeking death benefits.

At some point, Atkins enlisted the help of Sen. Smith to light a fire under the VA.

On March 14, Smith received a letter from Gerard F. Lorang, then-director of the VA regional office in Portland, about Atkins' claim. Noting that Atkins' cancer is terminal, Lorang told Smith that Atkins' claim would be expedited.

Lorang has since retired, and Atkins has yet to receive any money.

Hershinow, the VBA spokeswoman, explained that before Atkins' service connection was established, he was getting monthly pension checks that included money for home nursing care. In 2005, when his illnesses were linked to his military service, he started getting paid under a different program, which gave him more money but eliminated a line item for nursing care. Under the newer arrangement, Atkins may also be eligible for additional payments for nursing care, Hershinow said, but the money "has to be requested very specifically by the veteran," Hershinow said.

Atkins did just that. On March 16, he filed a form asking for nursing aid and assistance.

Hershinow said she can't explain the delay since then. "I honestly wish I had an answer for you," she said. "I understand the frustration."

Hershinow said Atkins canceled, then rescheduled, a medical appointment the VA set for him to double-check whether he is entitled to nursing care. Last week she promised to review the file to make sure the visit was necessary. On Tuesday, Atkins said he was told he is, in fact, required to see four doctors on Sept 21.

Hammond, Sen. Smith's spokesman, said Oregonians regularly voice concern about veterans getting the runaround.

"One veteran getting caught up in red tape is too many," Hammond said. "We are constantly helping people machete though the red tape of the federal government."

While Atkins praises the general quality of the health care he's received at the VA hospital in Portland, he's determined to get square with the benefits side of the agency before the back pain or cancer get the best of him.

"I've thought about suicide a hundred times, but it's the coward's way out," he said. "You can't win a fight if you don't stand up and fight."



Mark Larabee: 503-294-7664;
[e-mail]

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