As a member of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor today plans to amend the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007, to improve the health care for area veterans.

Castor will fight to increase the number of resident physicians at hospitals for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill and Castor’s amendment will be debated at today’s House Armed Services Committee meeting.

Castor has visited wounded soldiers and caregivers at area hospitals on several occasions, including the VA hospitals James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, and Bay Pines VA Healthcare System in St. Petersburg. Haley and Bay Pines are both in Castor’s Congressional District and they are the busiest VA hospitals in the country. Doctors, patients and their families told Castor about challenges they face when returning from combat and ideas they had for better care for veterans.

While visiting the Haley VA Center, Castor met with Dr. Steven G. Scott, medical director, Tampa Poly-trauma Rehabilitation Center, Department of Veterans Affairs, who indicated that more physician residents at the hospital training in Iraq War injuries and poly-trauma rehabilitation would be an important improvement for the quality of care for returning veterans.

“The Tampa Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center is a recovery center for wounded warriors. We want to look at that as a priority of our government,” said Dr. Scott. “I think the average American would feel very good about contributing and supporting it. If they can get more slots it would help us greatly. If we don’t train future doctors, how are they going to take care of future injuries? We probably get 200 to 300 applications, a lot of good people that we could have in this program. But there’s a disconnect. On one hand we need people and we have people applying, but on the other hand we cannot offer them positions.”

Castor’s VA proposal complements her earlier bill, H.R. 1093, the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2007, which would increase the number of resident physician training positions for area hospitals, and help to expand care especially for underserved populations in Tampa Bay area hospitals like St. Joseph’s Hospital and Tampa General Hospital.

“Unfortunately, the arbitrary and outdated caps on physician training programs do not adjust for population growth, and contribute to a crisis in health care, especially for underserved folks,” said Castor. “This shortage is also reflected in the situation at Haley VA, which is located directly across the street from the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine.”

Castor continued, “Passage of this legislation would aid in getting much needed physician residents into our Veterans Hospitals so our troops receive the best health care. They are entitled to no less. This action should be taken right away in order for our troops to get assistance immediately.”

Residents at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital participate in all aspects of general surgery, including surgical endoscopy, vascular surgery, surgical intensive care unit, chest service, and also provide ‘call coverage’ for the VA during evenings and weekends.

The Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007 and Castor’s proposal are a response to Castor's trips to Haley and Bay Pines and recently reported challenges at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other VA facilities around the country.