Director's Message November 17, 2023

This sporting event was designed to help Veterans exercise, make friends, and see how much they can still do despite age, injury, or other difficulties. I’d like to send out a special thank you to the AMVETS West Oahu Center for hosting the Koa Challenge, and to the Veterans who came out to participate. When an event is well-attended, it lets us know that we’re providing you with opportunities that you value, and nothing could be more important to my staff and to me.

Leeward CBOC Remains Open

A new clinic - called the Daniel K. Akaka Clinic at 91-1051 Franklin D. Roosevelt Ave in Kapolei - will open in Spring of 2024 on the west side of Oahu. Our Leeward CBOC will remain open as well to ensure that all Veterans on the west side of Oahu have access to VA care. If you are on the west side of Oahu and haven’t enrolled in VA care yet, now is the perfect time to start your enrollment process so that you will have access to our facilities in your area. The Leeward CBOC is located at 91-2135 Fort Weaver Road, Suite 501, Ewa Beach, HI 96706. Call 1-800-214-1306 to enroll and make an appointment.

WWII Veterans Get Expanded Care

VA announced that all World War II Veterans are now eligible for no-cost VA health care, medical services, and nursing home care. Veterans who served in WWII between Dec. 7, 1941, and Dec. 31, 1946, are eligible under this expansion, regardless of their length of service or financial status. These Veterans will not have to pay copays, enrollment fees or monthly premiums.

All WWII Veterans are encouraged to enroll in VA health care – the best, most-affordable health care in America for Veterans. Veterans who are enrolled in VA health care are proven to have better health outcomes than non-enrolled Veterans, and VA hospitals have dramatically outperformed non-VA hospitals in overall quality ratings and patient satisfaction ratings.

This expansion is made possible through the Joseph Maxwell Cleland and Robert Joseph Dole Memorial Veterans Benefits and Health Care Improvement Act of 2022 (Cleland-Dole Act), signed in December 2022. To apply for VA health care, visit VA’s health care enrollment website, call 1-800-MyVA411 (800-698-2411), or visit our clinics in your communities to talk with us about how we can help you access safe, compassionate, quality care through VA.

Veterans Helping Veterans

Veterans receive help and guidance from fellow Veterans throughout their Whole Health journey. Volunteer “peer facilitators” not only understand the Veteran experience, but have learned how to Live Whole Health and can share their knowledge. Peer facilitators also teach Whole Health classes for Veterans where they assist participants in developing their own personal health plans. Watch this video to learn more about the role of peer facilitators in Whole Health: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLLsCVvGitU. For more information, call 1-800-214-1306.

Thoughts from Chaplain Richie Charles

There are a few things that we tend to dislike more than irritants. But in the case of oysters, and other mollusks of the ocean, we find an inspirational example in nature of how an irritant can result in a gem of an experience.

From time to time, foreign objects such as food particles and small living creatures make their way into a mollusk’s shell. These particles are called “irritants”. To protect itself, the oyster wraps the particle with a substance called nacre (or “Mother of Pearl”). As it wraps the irritant with mother of pearl, it ends up producing the beautiful pearls adored by humans today.

While most other gemstones are minerals formed in the earth as a result of pressure and heat, pearls are the only gems created inside of a living creature!

Oysters therefore provide an inspirational example of how to transform problems into precious pearls. Pearls are the by-product of an oyster resolving to meet its challenges with the best resources it has.

Oysters remind us that a key to resilience is being able to meet life’s challenges with the right attitude. What happened inside the oyster, was more consequential than what happened to the oyster. Oysters understand that they cannot control everything in their environment, but they can control how they’ll respond. Oysters choose to create a gem out of the challenges that come their way.

When we choose to meet our challenges with the right attitude, not only do we gain personal victories, we also gain precious experiences that can become pearls of wisdom that can be shared with others facing similar challenges. It allows us to gain the wisdom and empathy to better relate to others and become a source of encouragement for those passing through similar challenges.  Let’s resolve to create pearls out of problems, gaining wisdom that will be treasured by others.

One Team, One Ohana!
Adam M. Robinson, Jr., MD, MBA, CPE
Director, VA Pacific Islands Health Care System
VADM, MC, USN, (RET)
36th Surgeon General, USN

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