Bush funded less for PTSD in 2005 than in past years

WRJ vets hospital gets funding boost

May 3, 2008

By Susan Smallheer Rutland Herald

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The budget for the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder got a 20 percent boost Friday.

Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., both pushed hard for the additional $2 million funding for the $10 million budget for the center, which is headed by Matthew Friedman.

The national center, whose headquarters is at the Veterans' Administration Hospital in White River Junction, had seen its funding reduced since 2005, resulting in cuts in staffing and research, according to Sanders' spokesman Will Wiquist.

Sanders and Leahy had lobbied fellow Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs.

Sanders and Akaka then pushed Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake to restore funding and increase it. Sanders and Akaka met with Peake last month to push the additional funding. Sanders is a member of the committee as well.

According to a letter Sanders and Akaka sent to Peake earlier this year, the funding for the center had increased only 9 percent in the past five years, growing from $9.1 million to $10 million. In 2005, the funding was $10.1 million, but it was cut back to $10 million.

With the cut in funding, the number of full-time equivalent employees at the center dropped from a high of 97 in 1999, to 87 employees, the senators said.

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This has been in the news before but the media, well, they let the report drop out of time slots. Guess they had better things to report on. The price of this action by Bush came at a very, very high price with two occupations causing more PTSD cases and more needless suffering when they could have been healing.