Soldier Audiotaped Encounters with Fort Carson Doctors

Fort Carson hospital reforms enacted after investigation into care of mental health patient
The Gazette
By Tom Roeder
Published: February 15, 2015

The sergeant said his medical care was influenced by the Army's desire for a discharge, including records that described him as a "31-year-old patient pending chapter (discharge) for misconduct."

The Army has come under fire for giving disciplinary discharges for minor misconduct to soldiers suffering from war-caused mental illness. Those other than honorable discharges, which can leave soldiers without their VA medical benefits, were documented in a 2013 Gazette investigation that earned a 2014 Pulitzer Prize. 

A mental health patient's audiotaped encounters with Fort Carson doctors led to a sweeping investigation of Evans Army Community Hospital and a series of reforms in patient care, documents obtained by The Gazette show.

The Army found that some workers in the hospital's behavioral health department were demeaning, patronizing, foul-mouthed and told the soldier that a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, would make commanders pay attention to his claims of mental illness because they would see him as likely to snap.

The 775-page report cleared the hospital of allegations that psychiatrists and therapists worked to push mentally ill soldiers out of the Army on conduct-related discharges but found they did feel pressure from commanders to clear the way for discharges.

A social worker and a major working as a physician were disciplined after the report. Fort Carson said the major "was removed from his leadership position."

"This incident does not speak to the core values or the common practices of the Fort Carson behavioral health staff," said Col. Dennis LeMaster, the hospital's commander.

The investigation began in May when a staff sergeant presented commanders with recordings made during mental health visits. It concluded in August when Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho ordered the hospital to retrain its behavioral health staff.

"The Evans Army Community Hospital commander will conduct a phased behavioral health stand-down to address issues of professionalism in the workplace; dignity and respect during patient encounters; the use of profanity during patient encounters; how to balance demands from the chain of command with providing objective, patient-centered care and proper boundaries when discussing benefits with patients," Horoho ordered.
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It is almost as if they took a trip back in time.

This doesn't seem like the same issue reported on Army Times.

WTU problems aren't systemic News outlets in Dallas reported in November that hundreds of soldiers had suffered a pattern of "disrespect, harassment and belittlement of soldiers" at WTUs at Fort Bliss, Fort Hood, and Fort Sam Houston in Texas.This comes on the heels of another incident at a medical facility (not a WTU) at Fort Carson, Colorado, that had led to discipline against a physician and a social worker for actions dating to early 2014.

Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, the Army surgeon general, affirmed that while even one case of abuse isn't tolerable, most of the complaints turned out not to be medical care-related and about 24 cases of harassment have been dealt with. And she said the reports documented issues that the Army already uncovered itself.

"They weren't concerns that an outside source came to us and said do you realize you have these problems," Horoho said at a round-table update on her command for members of the media at the Pentagon on Friday. "We have eight different avenues (for) our warriors and their family members to have their voices heard. When those concerns come up, each of them is looked at and then we take appropriate action."

But it wasn't just happening at Fort Carson

Hundreds of Wounded Warriors, including at Fort Bliss, were reportedly harassed and abused by staff between 2009 and 2013.

It has top military officials talking. There were allegations of "disrespect, harassment and belittlement of soldiers" at a place where they should have been getting help -- the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Bliss.

"Was there in fact cause for concern at the WTU at Fort Bliss?" El Paso Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso) asked Col. Chris Toner, the head of the Army's Transitional Command, last week at a congressional hearing in Washington.

And it was far from new

Critics: Fort Carson policy targeted troubled, wounded soldiers
Stars and Stripes
By Bill Murphy Jr.
Published: November 15, 2011

FORT CARSON, Colo. — Army Cpl. Joshua Smith saw the orange glow against the South Carolina night sky long before he reached his sister’s apartment complex. The fire in the back buildings was intense. People stood in shock, watching the blaze.

Smith leapt from his rental car and vaulted a five-foot brick wall, yelling at onlookers to call for help. He grabbed an exercise weight someone had left in the yard, threw it through a sliding glass door and burst into the burning building. He shepherded a mother and her 16-month-old daughter to safety, then turned his attention to the other apartments, kicking down doors, running room to room, making sure no one else was trapped. By the time he emerged, firefighters had arrived. The local TV news hailed the 22-year-old infantryman — home on leave after a tour in Iraq before transferring to Fort Carson, Colo. — whose quick action saved lives.

“It was easy,” Smith said later. “Nobody was shooting at me.”

Sixteen months later, in November 2010, the acting commander at Fort Carson, Brig. Gen. James H. Doty, pinned the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for noncombat heroism, to Smith’s chest. It was the young soldier’s second valor medal in three years in the military, after an Army Commendation Medal with valor device that he’d been awarded for his combat service.

For all his heroics, however, Smith’s life was falling apart.

‘This pattern ... is so clear'

With soldiers coming home broken in record numbers, the Army has pledged to take care of their physical and mental wounds. The quick-separation policy at Fort Carson stands in direct conflict with that pledge.

The Army touts a zero-tolerance policy for drug use, but commanders have considerable discretion regarding how much punishment soldiers receive and whether they ultimately are retained or discharged.

Moreover, defense lawyers and veterans advocates point to many cases in which soldiers who tested positive for use of drugs once, or occasionally even twice or more — but who were not facing a possible medical discharge — have been retained on active duty.

Just last month, the vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, talked about the link between PTSD and traumatic brain injury on the one hand, and substance abuse and suicide on the other.