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Lack of mental health workers worries senator

One of the chief architects of last year’s Wounded Warrior Act will press the service surgeons general about why the Defense Department doesn’t have enough psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health counselors to deal with the flood of combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., will have the opportunity to question the surgeons general at a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.

Murray expressed concern that the Defense Department has not hired enough specialists to deal with mental health issues created by extended deployments, the stress of combat and other issues.

“The fact that we aren’t meeting the demand for our troops’ psychological health needs with qualified professionals is a great concern of mine,” she said in a telephone interview. “The Pentagon needs to tell us what they are doing to fill the gaps in the system, particularly when troops are being sent back into the field for their third and fourth tours.”

The answers are important, Murray said, because “all Americans need to know that the Pentagon is making this a top health priority and that innovative solutions are on the horizon.”

The Wounded Warrior Act, included in the 2008 Defense Authorization Act that became law in January, required the Defense Department to develop an expanded plan for preventive, early-intervention and post-deployment mental health care.

The law also ordered a study of physical and mental health issues and readjustment problems for troops who took part in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, with a particular focus on gender and ethnicity as factors.

A final report, including recommendations for change, is due in January.

The surgeons general will appear along with the chief nurses of the Army, Navy and Air Force before the appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii.

Inouye has criticized attempts by the Bush administration to hold down health-related costs by ordering Tricare fee increases and using so-called “efficiency wedges” — reductions ordered in medical budgets that service officials have said make it difficult to hire civilian specialists to work in military hospitals and clinics.

At a hearing earlier this year before the Senate Armed Services Committee, senior defense and service officials said hiring mental health professionals has been difficult because of competition from the private sector for individuals with those skills.

Officials said they have tried to meet immediate needs by hiring contractors, though many service members with combat-related mental health issues have complained about being treated by civilians who have no link to, and often little understanding of, the military.