VA (2A1gol a) Administration Radiation Cy Ci cea Information for Veterans WhoParticipated in Nuclear Weapons Testing or in the Occupation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima MEDICAL CARE AUTHORIZED To assure that VA can respondto veterans’ concerns regarding possible health effects of exposure to low levels of :on1zing radiation following the detonation of nuclear devices in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan, or in the atomic weapons testing program, Congress has authorized VA to provide needed health-care services for major illnesses or disabilities which any of these veterans may develop. ' Public Law 97-72, the “Veterans’ Health Care, Training and Small Business Loan Act of 1981,” authorizes the Veterans Administration to provide hospital and nursing homecare and limited outpatient services to a veteran who was exposed “while serving on active duty to ionizing radiation from the detonation of a nuclear device in connection with such veteran’s participation in the test of such a device or with the American occupation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during the period beginning on September 11, 1945, and ending on July 1, 1946.” This law does not provide, however, for the care of conditions that are found to have resulted from causes other than exposure to ionizing radiation. MEDICAL EXAMINATION VA will perform a complete physical examination, includingall necessary tests, for each veteran who requests it if the veteran was exposedto ionizing radiation while participating in the nuclear weaponstesting program or 1f he or she served with the occupatton forces in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Japan. For those who have been examined by the VA within the prior six months, only those procedures that are medically indicated by the current circumstanceswill be repeated. Where the examinationreveals a condition requiring treatment, the responsible staff physician must determine whetherthe condition resulted from a cause other than exposure to 1onizing radiation. HEALTH CARE SERVICES If a veteran has a disorder that may have been caused by exposure to radiation, VA will provide hospital and nursing homecare in VA facilities. Outpatient care also will be provided at a VA facility: (1) to avoid a need to hospitalize a veteran; (2) to prepare a veteran for hospitalization; and (3) to complete care that was initiated during a period of VA hospitalization. These services may be provided without regard to the veteran’s age, service-connectedstatus or the ability of the veteran to defray the expenses of such care. Veterans mayreceive outpatient care only when the VA facilities can provide it. The VA will pay private physicians for outpatient services only when they provide post-hospital care and then only if VA or other governmentfacilites cannot provide the needed care or cannot do so economically because the distance between patient and facility 1s too great. Under this authority, veterans will be given high priority for outpatient care. Figure 4. VA medical care available to eligible veterans of U.S. atmospheric nuclear