VA Unable To Keep Up

Most of the folks at the VA really do try hard to serve our troops.

Unfortunately, they often don't have the people or resources to meet all of the needs of the veterans.

An Associated Press article in the Marine Corps Times had some alarming statistics, and some warnings about the long term effects of PTSD or trauma.

According to the Pentagon and several independent studies, at least a third of the troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer some level of mental illness. By some estimates, a fifth of those 1.5 million veterans will, like Griego, develop post-traumatic stress disorder.

Of the 2,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan so far enrolled at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Albuquerque, between 25 and 30 percent are receiving mental health services, hospital officials say.

Unfortunately, though the demand is great, the entiresystem is unable to cope:

A congressional investigation released late last year found that VA had failed to spend much of a $300 million appropriation designed to fill gaps in mental health care, and some of what it did spend went in other directions.

A Navy commander said at a congressional hearing that 90 percent of the military mental health care providers he surveyed weren’t trained to treat PTSD.

It's a tough situation, but the fact remains that the veterans need to seek the help that they need. You can't be helped unless you're willing to work at it.

To your healing.

Mike