March 1, 2000

To Our Hawaii Congressional Delegation

Senator Daniel K. Inouye

Senator Daniel K. Akaka

Representative Patsy T. Mink

Representative Neil Abercrombie

One of our Maui Veterans, Roger Evangelista, has or is going to meet you this week with an important request for allocating our Maui VA clinic (CBOC) the needed resources and dollars required to give our veterans the local medical care they are entitled to and that has been found lacking over the last 5 years or more!!

As President of the Vietnam Veterans of Maui County (VVMC), we are strongly urging you to support our Maui Veterans request as stated in the letter delivered to You by Mr. Evangelista (Attached). Our 500+ members and many of the other 3,000 Maui Vietnam Veterans sorely need a full-time Doctor in our Maui VA clinic (CBOC), as well as the ability to see private medical specialists on Maui when a full time Maui VA doctor cannot handle a specific medical specialty problem a veteran may have.

We are asking you to represent us with the U.S. Congress and to go to the VA in Washington, D.C. to ask for and insist on any necessary changes so that Maui, and the other neighbor islands, are allocated the additional medical personnel and DOLLARS needed to deliver the very basic Medical Services our VETERANS are ENTITLED to and so sorely have been without since our Maui CBOC opened in 1988.

We are not willing to wait any longer for the basic right to have our own VA doctor, full time, in our Maui Clinic. Over the last 12 years hundreds upon hundreds of Maui veterans have suffered lengthy delays in seeing a VA doctor and have suffered needlessly while they wait for weeks or months to correct serious medical problems.

We are calling for an end to this un-necessary neglect of our most Decorated, Loyal, and Brave War veterans!!!

Your efforts and Heartfelt support over the years have brought the VA clinics to the Neighbor Islands and for this you have earned the overwhelming Aloha and appreciation of our Veterans. But NOW we must insist that the additional necessary medical Personnel, and any additional funding needed by the VA, be put in place on Maui (and the other Islands) to provide the services the VA Clinic is mandated to deliver.

I await your reply in this very important request on behalf of the VVMC Membership. And our Officers stand ready to meet with You and our entire Hawaii Delegation, if need be, to secure the afore-mentioned basic medical services on Maui.

Aloha Pumehana,

Mitch Skaggerberg- President VVMC