VA doctor: I was punished for speaking out on PTSD care

VA doctor: I was punished for speaking out
By Elaine Quijano
CBS News
February 14, 2013

(CBS News) Veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder will be getting much-needed help. This week, the Department of Veterans Affairs said it has hired more than a thousand new specialists on orders from President Obama. It might not have happened if a VA doctor had not sounded an alarm. But now that psychologist says she's being punished.

"It did weigh on me pretty heavily," said psychologist Michelle Washington. "I felt like as a therapist I'm not doing what I was trained to do."

Washington said that in 2011, the Wilmington, Del., veterans hospital was overwhelmed by the number of troops returning from war with PTSD.

"There was a massive delay in the treatment," she said. "Often what happens is they start medicating with drugs or alcohol, and they don't come back. And they end up getting lost in the system and lost out there in the world without the help."

At the VA hospital where she works, Washington said her concerns were ignored by supervisors. So she accepted an invitation to appear before the Senate Veterans Affairs committee. But after she requested time off to testify, she received the first and only unsatisfactory performance rating of her five-year career at the VA.
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