By Clark Davis
August 18, 2010 · As young soldiers return from war, many are dealing with a problem that’s becoming more prevalent, post-traumatic stress disorder. The Veteran’s Affairs hospital near Huntington is working on an answer.
A three building mental health compound is under renovation on the VA Medical Center campus. Next year it will house a facility providing outpatient services for those with serious mental illnesses and a residential facility for PTSD or substance abuse patients.
Janine Shaw is the Chief of Mental Health for the Huntington VA.
“In the past it’s been the physical wounds, for these wars it’s the psychiatric, the mental health wounds that are predominating, so we know that’s what we have to address first, these veterans have been in a different type of combat than what we’ve ever seen before,” Shaw said.
The Huntington VA Center serves 24 counties in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. The new facilities will begin opening in January. The cost of renovating the buildings that date back to the early 1900’s will be ultimately over $10 million.
“We also know this from what we’ve learned over the past 20 or 30 years about the nature of PTSD that if we can get in there quickly and the problems don’t set in then you stand a much better chance of having a good outcome a very positive outcome,” Shaw said.
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