Availability of PTSD Treatment Varies with vacant jobs in South Korea

Availability of PTSD Treatment Varies
Stars and Stripes Erik Slavin October 29, 2007CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea - Post-traumatic stress disorder treatment - and even availability of care - differs from base-to-base across the Pacific, according to military officials.

On Okinawa, the U.S. Naval Hospital sees no shortage of mental health providers, according to Cmdr. Gary B. Hoyt, the hospital's mental health department head.

But at Camp Casey, South Korea, home to a large number of infantry Soldiers, positions for a deployment cycle manager and a family counselor have sat vacant for months at different times within the past year, officials said.

Hoyt wrote that while the Defense Department has seen an overall shortage in active-duty, hospital-based mental health providers, the funding for those services is increasing.

The DOD problem is "related specifically to operational deployment needs, and more generally to the increased psychological demands of the global war on terror," Hoyt stated in an e-mail.
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