Local females lean on center's support groups

Stacel Griffin wouldn't consider missing a weekly meeting of her support group for women veterans.

Griffin, 36, is disabled with severe carpel tunnel syndrome in both wrists, migraine headaches and post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the Army Reserve as a supply and ammunition truck driver in Iraq.

She's one of a growing number of women flooding Veterans Affairs hospitals and programs with physical, mental and emotional health problems. And the growth in the number of female patients is pushing those institutions, whose patients were previously predominantly male, to provide more services geared toward women.

Griffin, of North Charleston, can talk freely to other women in her group about watching soldiers die and fellow service members maimed by improvised explosive devices. She also can share the horror of watching other members of her convoy pick up bodies of Iraqis who were killed in combat and place them in one of their trucks.

"Soldiers are not allowed to leave an Iraqi on the side of the road," she said.

She can also talk with the women about struggles in her marriage, with her children, and about everything life is throwing at her while she's in a fragile state.

Many male veterans also struggle when they return from war, Griffin said. And they often turn to alcohol and drugs. "But women have to talk to other women. A man is just not going to feel the same way," she said.

Griffin's group meets at the Charleston Veterans Center, a VA outreach center where veterans help other veterans.

Charleston's Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center has seen an increase in female patients as well.

Ann Hanlon, a physician and the center's director of women's health, said she was hired about 2 1/2 years ago to serve the growing number women veterans showing up for services. "We changed our attitude and how we do women's health," she said.

The 975 regular female patients at the medical center in Charleston fall into two groups, she said. One group consists mostly of women in their 20s who have been in combat. The other is composed mainly of women in their 40s and 50s who previously served in the military.

Many women in the second group have not had ties to the military for many years, she said, but returned to the VA in the economic downturn when they lost their jobs and health insurance.

Women need a comprehensive health-care program, she said, and the VA offers regular check-ups and male, to provide more services geared toward women.

And the VA allows doctors to spend time with patients, she said. "We're not rushed to see 30 patients a day," she said.

Many of the younger women she sees who have served overseas are dealing with chronic pain, and many develop post-traumatic stress disorder during their first year home, she said.

Bunny Mizzell, the Charleston VA hospital's women's program manager, said it's still new to see women at the VA who have been in combat. Women may not be serving on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said, "but they are in harm's way."

"We didn't used to hear about women who died, or women amputees, or women with brain injuries. This is all new," she said.