New funds will help vets’ mental wounds

In fiscal 2008, VA health care will grow by $3.6 billion.

SEATTLE TIMES

SEATTLE — A surge of new money is in the pipeline to help Department of Veterans Affairs and Army hospitals and clinics treat the mental wounds of men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the increased funding comes amid a surge in soldiers and veterans who may need help. About 38 percent of new veterans seeking VA care in April reported possible mental-health problems, according to testimony Friday at a U.S. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing in Tacoma.

As active duty and National Guard soldiers cycle in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the VA and military health-care system are confronted with a complex set of problems. Those include post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, trauma from sexual assaults and from marital discord that tears families apart.

Last week, the Army reported that 2006 saw the highest rate of suicides in 26 years, with 99 soldiers taking their own lives. About a third of the suicide victims were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dealing with issues

As thousands of soldiers return to Fort Lewis, Wash., from 15-month-long combat tours in Iraq, military and VA facilities in Puget Sound are expected to be at the forefront of dealing with the emotional fallout from these extended deployments.

“It is clear that the fighting has taken a tremendous toll,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who organized the hearing. “We are facing serious challenges.”

Murray has been a key figure in a congressional battle to ramp up mental-health services, which were spread thin in the early years of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq by staffing cuts and what VA officials — in a 2004 report to Congress — said were insufficient budgets to deal with an expanding demand from the veterans of previous wars and the new veterans.

Murray has helped fashion increases in the VA’s health-care budget. An extra $100 million was targeted for mental-health care for this fiscal year. In the 2008 fiscal year, VA health-care spending will be increased by $3.6 billion.

Kathy Nylen, an American Legion representative in Washington state, said that in recent years funding for substance-abuse treatment has declined. She also said some veterans were disturbed by a shift from individual to group counseling.

Bill needed for Guard

Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, head of the Washington National Guard, said new legislation was needed to authorize the Guard — which is on wartime footing — to hire its own mental-health-care workers to treat its soldiers.

He also said medical and mental-health coverage needs to be extended for at least a year after deployments to help Guard veterans, who often struggle in the shift from combat to civilian life without the support network offered active-duty soldiers.

Murray receives numerous complaints from soldiers and veterans who are frustrated in their efforts to get mental-health care or by the bureaucratic hurdles they face in seeking disability compensation for these problems.

Murray said that many had “compelling and heartbreaking” stories but were reluctant to testify at the Friday hearing.