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By Dennis Camire
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The Veterans Affairs Department seems to have a widespread indifference toward veterans with mental illness, U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Akaka and other Senate Democrats said yesterday.
Their comments came after the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which Akaka chairs, heard a VA psychologist deny she was trying to save money when she suggested in an e-mail to her staff that they use other mental illness diagnoses for veterans who may have post-traumatic stress disorder.
"This incident was both disturbing and disappointing," Akaka said. "It reinforced fears among many veterans that the VA's mental health system is not meeting all their needs."
The e-mail, written by Norma Perez, a former PTSD program coordinator for the VA medical center in Temple, Texas, followed another problem where VA officials tried to suppress data on veteran suicides, Akaka said.
"Together, these incidents suggest a possible trend — widespread indifference to the invisible wounds of war," Akaka said. "We are concerned about systemwide problems within VA's mental health system."
Akaka has asked the VA to review and revise its PTSD treatment and compensation guidelines and provide complete data on veterans' suicides. He also has requested a VA inspector general's investigation of the Temple VA medical center.
Perez told the committee that her e-mail was meant to remind her staff that war stress could also cause adjustment disorder, which is a diagnosis less serious than PTSD.
"I sent an e-mail to my staff on March 20 to stress the importance of an accurate diagnosis," she said.
In her e-mail, Perez cited a growing number of veterans seeking compensation when she suggested her staff "refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out" and consider a lesser diagnosis of adjustment disorder. "Additionally, we really don't ... have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD," Perez wrote.
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This is a quote from the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) manual, Assisting Individuals in Crisis George Everly Jr. Ph.D. F.A.P.M. John Hopkins University and Loyola College
"Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): a pathognomonic variation of post-traumatic stress. It is characterized by 3 symptom clusters: intrusive memories of the event, stress arousal symptoms, numbing, and avoidance reactions. Symptoms must persist for a minimum of 30 days and must cause significant distress and/or dysfunction. Psychosomatic symptoms may develop as a result of PTSD."
In other words, if symptoms last more than 30 days, it's PTSD. If people who train for CISM can understand this with just two days of training, how can a "professional" not know this and find no time to diagnose the veterans correctly?
Just hearing the view that Perez thought it was ok to tell staff that they don't have time for the veterans sent shutters down the spine of every veteran in this country!
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