On Wednesday, July 26, 2017, the fundraiser for “Dentists for Veterans” was held at Indian Joe Brewing Co, located at 2123 Industrial Ct, Vista. 92081. Charles Zaheki, Founder, Clinical Director and volunteer said, “We are very grateful to Indian Joe Brewing along with Amy Scruggs, Dave Adams and Allan Perrault, who spent a lot of time to come from the Bay Area in Santa Clara to North County San Diego to play music for the Indian Joe Brewing patrons and raise money for this amazing cause.” The customers enjoyed the music and drank lots of beer to help donate to that cause.
Dr. Charles Zaheki explained, “The reason we HAD to do something is, when our Veterans go to the VA Hospital to seek dental care, the first question they ask them is, “Are you 100% disabled”? If they are less than 100% disabled, they cannot get care. They can acquire care if they are a former Prisoner of War or service connected, meaning that out of 22 million people that go to a VA hospital, roughly 21.5 million of them are not able to acquire access to dental care. Out of those, .5 million that do get access to dental care, the quality of care is very poor.
President John F. Kennedy told us, Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Your Country.” So I said “If no one is doing something for Veterans, I will. I am a doctor, and a UCLA Professor, and I will use my talent and money, which I started doing in 2011. We are a number of volunteer doctors and we use our talent, time and money to help, and hopefully one day the US Government will pick up the tab and actually change the law.”
Currently the US Federal Code does not protect the Veterans with their dental care. The current administration is making efforts to change the law completely in favor of our veterans.
