Saturday is Veterans Day, and at events around New Jersey, people are gathering to honor those who serve. And there are some who are also demanding reforms in how the state treats those who have served.
“I find that the vets have been forgotten,” said Kim Kloeber, an Air Force nurse who recently retired as a colonel, after 25 years of service.
Kloeber was at a Veterans Day observance in Oradell where she talked about crucial health care improvements desperately needed by military vets, including just having advocates in hospitals and retirement homes. After the COVID-19 crisis at state-run homes in Paramus and Menlo Park yielded one of the highest death tolls for veterans facilities in the nation, veterans representatives have said the homes need far better communications with residents and families.
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) is sponsoring a bill that would place a federal advocate in every veterans’ home across the country. “What we found out during the pandemic and other times, people didn’t know who to call,” he said. “And they weren’t getting information. Families were calling me, saying, ‘Do you know what’s going on in there?’”
That’s just one step, and others cited the ongoing and broader concerns about the quality of care at the state’s veterans homes. A federal investigation of the two homes alleged violations of residents’ constitutional rights and called for vast improvements in medical care and management.
“We still have a long way to go to give us a platinum level care for the veterans that call Menlo Park and Paramus home,” said VFW spokesman Jay Boxwell.
State lawmakers have begun drafting bills to reconfigure the state’s Department of Veterans and Military Affairs.
