Sen. Brown praises Chillicothe VA facility after visit
CHILLICOTHE – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown praised the Chillicothe VA Medical Center after a Wednesday visit to the facility.
“I think they’ve done a good job of keeping patients safe and employees safe in their responsibility to do both,” said the Ohio Democrat. “I’ve been a member of the (Senate) Veteran’s Affairs Committee longer than any senator ever in Ohio, since my first year in office, and I take that responsibility very seriously.”
Brown said that most veterans want to get their care through the VA, as the VA staff is uniquely qualified to take care of veterans. “They have an uncommon empathy for veterans, they hire many veterans,” he said. “They know what to look for, whether it’s exposure to agent orange or the burn pits in Iraq.”
The biggest challenge, he said, was two-fold – getting enough staff, and getting men to use the system.
“It’s always a challenge to get men in the healthcare system early, men don’t want to go in as early for things like prostate exams as they should,” said Brown. “... Cause this system works. It’s a challenge to meet adequate staffing levels. But the care is always good, obviously, everyone makes mistakes but the care here in Chillicothe is good. Even though the population is declining in the area that Chillicothe serves, I want to see this veteran’s hospital stay vibrant, stay staffed, and stay funded.”
Brown also addressed the pullout from Afghanistan, stating he was glad that President Biden ended the 20-yearlong conflict.
“I called the mother of a soldier who died and I told her that her son was courageous and a hero because he protected the lives of so many Americans and Afghani allies getting safely out of the country,” he said. “You can always do better, getting people out, but the military did a good job getting tens of thousands of people out.”
The senator noted that there are many at Chillicothe VA who served in the Middle East.
“There are many people at this hospital now that served in Afghanistan,” Brown said. “Their work was not in vain, it made people’s lives better, made them safer, kept terrorists out of the country and that was the mission but it should have been wrapped up earlier.”
In August, Brown signed a letter along with 45 senate colleagues asking the president to take swift action in protecting Afghan women, particularly in leadership, activism, civil service and military roles, from retaliatory attacks by the Taliban.
“That’s the hardest question of all,” Brown said Friday. “Whatever we can do, we should do, but we can’t stay there in this war forever, it wasn’t serving the Afghan people to keep us there and it certainly wasn’t serving us as a country in terms of lost American lives, exposure of Americans to all kinds of dangers, and cost to taxpayers.”
Brown also addressed redistricting, the process by which House and Senate districts in Ohio will be redrawn for the next ten years.
The Republican-led committee missed its first constitutional deadline on Sept. 1 to propose a district map although they stated Wednesday afternoon that they would release a draft map on Thursday ahead of their Sept. 15 second constitutional deadline.
“The best path forward is for Republicans to quit abusing the system,” said Brown. “This isn’t a both parties guilty kind of situation. Republicans have drawn the lines, the state is a little more republican than democratic, but these lines have been abused and Republicans look like they’re going to do it again, they aren’t listening to what voters said – that they want fair redistricting and I don’t see Republicans going along with that.”
He continued that “it’s gotten to the point where instead of voters choosing their politicians, politicians are trying to choose their voters and create districts only their party could win.”
The commission, tasked with redrawing Ohio’s 99 house districts and 33 senate districts, has two meetings scheduled for Thursday: one at 10 a.m. “to hear testimony on state redistricting plans” and another at 2 p.m. for the commission to vote to introduce a commission map, as reported by the Columbus Dispatch.
If the panel’s two Democrats don’t approve the map, the panel can approve a map for the next four years with a simple majority. Ohio Majority Senate Leader Matt Huffman stated he was hopeful that the committee can reach a consensus on a 10-year map.
Stacia Ruby, Public Information Officer for the Chillicothe VA, said she was pleased by Brown’s visit.
“It was great having the senator here and coming to see the veterans and staff of the Chillicothe VA,” said Ruby. “It’s nice when they come out and see what we do first hand, we tell them all the time what we do but seeing the facility in person is way different than hearing about it on paper.”
Contact Justin at Jreutterma@ gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @jayreutter1.