At a public hearing on Thursday, Feb. 13, Sandra Ferreria-Molina and Sally Bell appealed to the Appropriations Committee to increase the funding for veterans’ health care benefits.
The two women were coming at the issue from different perspectives: Ferreria-Molina, the Policy and Advocacy director of the Connecticut Oral Health Initiative, was asking the committee to support the proposed House Bill 6765 (HB6765), or “An Act Concerning Dental Care Services for Certain Veterans.” Bell, who is a certified nurse assistant (CNA) at the Rocky Hill Veterans Home & Hospital, which is run by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), was asking for more funding overall.
Both women were arguing that the state’s status-quo leaves veterans vulnerable.
“Unfortunately, many veterans face significant barriers to accessing quality health care, including dental services,” Ferreria-Molina said. “With [HB6765], we have an opportunity to alleviate one of those barriers.”
Compared to the rest of the country, veterans in Connecticut have some of the lowest rates of health issues that are associated with oral health care, according to the American Institute of Dental Public Health (AIDPH). However, veterans still have worse health outcomes than the general population.
In Connecticut, 7% of veterans have lost all their natural teeth, AIDPH reports. On top of that, 11% of veterans have heart disease and 16% have diabetes.
“Veterans are often left to navigate a complex system when seeking dental care, as for many the financial burden is simply too much to bear,” Ferreria-Molina said. “This bill fills that gap.”
HB6765 would provide vouchers to eligible veterans to help cover certain out-of-pocket costs of dental care if they receive services at the University of Connecticut School of Dental Medicine or any federally qualified health center in the state.
“Access to dental care is essential, not only for overall health, but for quality of life,” Ferreria-Molina said.
Bell works in a different side of health care. She is one of 12 CNAs who works at the Rocky Hill Veterans Hospital, she said. Depending on how many people are at the hospital, 12 CNAs might need to care for as many as 100 patients at once, according to Bell.
“We face challenges every day,” Bell said. “The veterans we serve are not receiving quality care they deserve because we are too understaffed to provide it.”
Bell described how sometimes, if the weather is too bad, one of the CNAs might not be able to show up for work. When this happens, before their shifts even started, the CNAs are already understaffed.
“We need to be staffing our units to just to flexible based on the fluctuating needs of this population and to anticipate staffing shortage in advance,” she said. “To do this, we need more funding; we need to hire more CNAs and nurses. We need to pay these caregivers a competitive wage so that we can attract and retain them.”
Across the nation, 82% of DVA medical facilities have a severe shortage of nurses. The DVA does not publish data specifically about its hospital in Rocky Hill, but there are shortages of nurses and CNAs in Connecticut.
“We cannot forget that it is the veterans who suffer when we choose not to fund these services,” Bell said. “They are people who gave everything they have for us and their country. They fought for us, it’s time we fight for them.”
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