(NEW YORK) MintPress — It’s been a tough homecoming for many of the 2.5 million soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade. While more than six thousand have been killed in action, because of the high survival rate, thanks to advances in combat medicine, those who are returning bear unprecedented physical and psychological wounds, many of them invisible.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has treated more than 210,000 vets of those wars for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but it has acknowledged the epidemic is much larger since many of them don’t seek help because of the stigma attached to mental health problems.
Now, the top senator on the veterans affairs committee says there could be another reason to believe the problem is more widespread than the numbers indicate: Military hospitals across the country may be denying treatment to service members with PTSD due to cost considerations. A service member diagnosed with PTSD becomes eligible for more financial benefits.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), has opened an investigation into the matter, saying she wanted to make sure that Army officials “don’t just bury this under the rug” as they investigate the issue on their own.
Misdiagnoses at Madigan tip of the iceberg?
The Army began its probe in January after complaints that officials at the Madigan Army Medical Center on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state reversed hundreds of PTSD diagnoses for patients who were up for medical retirement.
The Army now is re-evaluating how those diagnoses were changed.
Murray’s office revealed that a review of PTSD cases dating to 2007 found that 290 of 690 diagnoses – more than 40 percent – had been reversed by a medical screening team. Murray, whose committee has oversight over all issues involving veterans and the federal services they receive when they leave active duty, said she fears the same thing might type be happening at military hospitals across the country.
“Obviously, there’s a very intense focus, necessarily, on Madigan right now and that has to be ongoing,” she acknowledged. “But I’ve directed my VA staff to start looking at cases nationwide, and we are finding them. I want to make sure that the Army is not just saying, ’Well, this was just Madigan,’ because if we do that we’re going to lose a lot of people who have the same issue across the country…. I’m going to absolutely stay on top of the Army.”
In November, Murray and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the top Republican on her committee, chided the VA for not moving quickly enough to help returning service members with PTSD and other afflictions who often face long wait times in trying to get mental health appointments.
Medical quagmire
Vets in fact often complain about a byzantine bureaucracy, lost paperwork and inconsistent diagnoses.
“You fight for your country, then come home and have to fight against your own country for the benefits you were promised,” said Clay Hunt, a Marine sniper who was shot in the wrist in Iraq. Depressed, divorced and haunted by the loss of several close friends in combat, Hunt killed himself in March, 2011.
Indeed, PTSD has been cited as a factor not only in a surge in suicides, alcoholism and drug use among returning soldiers but also in acts of violence against others, including January’s killing of a Mount Rainier National Park ranger by a 24-year old Iraq vet.
Because of the high number of PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI) cases, it’s been estimated that the medical and disability costs for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans over the next 40 years could reach $930 billion.
First Lady seeks help
Sen. Murray’s investigation comes as First Lady Michelle Obama marks the first anniversary of her Joining Forces campaign, designed to honor U.S. troops and their families, particularly by helping find employment for veterans returning from war.
“There is so much more to do,” she said at a White House ceremony on Wednesday. “It’s a time for us to redouble our efforts.”
Still, appearing on “The Colbert Report” Wednesday night, Mrs. Obama told host Stephen Colbert that unemployment for returning veterans is above the national average, “We’re seeing it decrease at some pretty significant rates.”
In March, a week after U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales allegedly killed 16 unarmed civilians in Afghanistan, the First Lady took her Joining Forces initiative on the road, stopping briefly in Minnesota, where she took part in a round table discussion at the state’s Air National Guard base in St. Paul.
Although Mrs. Obama didn’t directly address mental health issues, she told the gathered military families, “One percent of this country is serving and sacrificing on behalf of the 99 percent,” adding that “a lot of the time America does not understand the struggle military families and kids go through.”
IAVA calls for stepping up mental health care
The executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), Paul Reickhoff, attended the White House event and said afterwards that while the First Lady’s campaign has been a welcome effort, many veterans of the two conflicts still aren’t feeling its impact.
“Mowing lawns for military families is great, but we’ve also got a spiking suicide rate,” he noted.
Reickhoff said the White House would have to “carefully navigate” how to push the program in an election year without allowing it to become mired in partisanship.
Murray is hoping to successfully walk the same fine line in her committee.”I will not be satisfied until I know that they have done an absolutely in-depth evaluation and found every soldier that may have been misdiagnosed – in a timely manner – and get them the care they need,” she said.