The number of veterans waiting for a decision on their claims for disability have doubled in about four years, “despite the appropriation of more than $300 million for a new computer system and the hiring of thousands of claims professionals nationwide,” the Bay Area Citizen reports.

Some 870,000 veterans are on hold awaiting the Veteran’s Administration. The wind-down of the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and fresh Agent Orange claims from Vietnam-era veterans is contributing to the backlog. 

California’s Bay Area office in Oakland is the slowest of all 60 VA offices, the Citizen reports. State Rep. Jackie Speier has visited the office. “It is an epidemic of delay.  I did not exactly leave invigorated.”