VA to boost mental-health services for returning troops
More soliders may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and amputation, says Principi.
Veterans' hospitals and clinics are preparing to offer more mental health services for troops returning from Iraq, VA Secretary Anthony Principi said Tuesday.
"We have to be ready for it. This type of warfare dictates that there will be a mental health aspect to it," Principi told the Defense Writers Group in Washington. He cited the guerilla tactics used by Iraqi insurgents, such as improvised explosive devices and other surprise attack methods, as likely to increase post-traumatic stress disorder among those serving in Iraq.
Principi said he has taken several steps to ensure mental health services are available, including:
- Requiring all 856 VA out-patient clinics to have a psychiatrist or psychologist on staff full time, or ensuring that veterans can consult a mental health provider in their community.
- Elevating the Veteran Health Administration's chief psychiatrist to the agency's National Leadership Board, a key policy-making group that includes VHA's other top executives and medical personnel.
- Establishing uniform funding for mental health care at the agency's 21 health-care networks.
- Reinvigorating the agency's in-patient substance abuse treatment programs.
- Awarding grants to states and local communities to provide as many as 10,000 spaces at homeless shelters to veterans.
Aside from mental health issues, Principi said more soldiers wounded in Iraq will probably need artificial limbs. "This war has awakened VA that we are seeing a lot of amputations and we need to be ready for it. I think we may have lost a little bit of our cutting-edge technology and leadership in this area over the past 10 to 15 years, and I think we need to get back to it," he said.
Principi continues to push VA's multibillion-dollar overhaul of its existing health-care facilities, saying the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services initiative is critically important to VA's future. "Unless the VA restructures, VA will fail," he said.
CARES calls for closing underutilized hospitals, overhauling and expanding existing veteran health-care facilities and opening 156 outpatient clinics by 2012 in Sun Belt areas with large veteran populations.
Principi said CARES will cost $1 billion annually for the next five to seven years. He added the average VA hospital is about 50 years old, while those in the private sector on average are only nine years old.