Pentagon taps into public health system to help troops with PTSD

Pentagon taps into public health system to help troops with PTSD
20 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Pentagon said Wednesday it is recruiting government public health workers to offset a shortage in mental care providers for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental problems.

Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, clinical social workers and psychiatric nurses will be tapped from the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps to work at military treatment centers, officials said.

Only about 50 members of the force have been identified so far for the work, but the service hopes to detail as many as 200 mental health providers to the military, said Admiral Joxel Garcia, assistant secretary of health.

The military has had trouble finding enough mental health professionals to deal with a wave of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health problems among servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Mental health providers are in short supply across the country. This is no secret, it's well established. It's a struggle to get people the right provider in any state in the country," said Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

"Today the cavalry riding to the rescue is the Public Health Service," he said.

The Commissioned Corps is a 6,000-member, uniformed division of the US Department of Health and Human Services whose doctors and nurses often work in isolated communities or are mobilized to respond to disasters.
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