Budget Woes Leads To Benefit Cut In Texas

A successful and popular medical transportation system for veterans in Texas has been discontinued due to funding, according to the Temple VA Hospital.

The VTS program, short for Veteran Transportation System, was officially discontinued for Central Texas by Veteran Affairs on Monday according to a letter obtained by News 10 in Tempe.

VTS is a pilot transportation program enacted in September of 2010 by Veteran Affairs that picks up veterans from their homes, and transports them to their medical appointments.

It differs greatly from regular volunteer shuttling (or the Volunteer Transportation Network) because of the personal service it provides. Picking veterans up from their doorstep, as opposed to making them travel to a pickup point.

Since it was a pilot program, Veteran Affairs only provided enough funding to run the program for two years.

“It really is out of our hands when it comes to funding. We don’t control what the main offices do,” Temple VA Hospital’s Public Affairs Spokesperson Deborah Meyer said.

Pick up routes to homes of veterans will cease on September 1st, 2012…or until funding officially runs out for the program.