Senator Barbara Boxer needs to read the Hartford Courtant Report

Providers needed for mental health care

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Mar 7, 2008 15:54:54 EST

A nationwide shortage of mental health professionals is hurting — but not preventing — the military’s expansion of counseling and treatment programs for service members and their families, officials say.

Army Col. Loree Sutton, director of the Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, said Tricare has added more than 3,000 new mental health providers to its networks in the past few months and is also trying to find non-network providers willing to take on new patients — part of a move to expand treatment options for members of the National Guard and reserve.

Sutton said the Pentagon also is working with the U.S. Public Health Service to get the services up to 200 mental health providers who can augment military counselors and doctors.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who four years ago was one of the toughest critics of military mental health services, said March 5 that she is pleased the military seems to be taking the issue seriously.
But, she said, military medical people cannot rest on their laurels.

“We have a big problem ... that is only going to get worse if we don’t do something big now,” Boxer said as she and military medical officials testified before the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee.

“We need to ensure we have adequate numbers of uniformed mental health providers who can train and deploy with our troops and be there when they are needed,” she said, noting that treatment does no good if it is not available quickly.

“When we do this right, it is going to help our military in the long run,” Boxer said.
go here for the rest

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/military_mentalhealth_030708w/
From what I just posted.

The study found that behavioral health providers were also struggling. Despite the Army's repeated emphasis on expanding psychological services to soldiers, the ratio of mental health providers to soldiers in Iraq dropped to one provider for every 734 troops in 2007 — down from one for every 387 in 2004.

http://woundedtimes.blogspot.com/2008/03/worse-rate-of-mental-health-help-for.html