DoD Receives Mental Health Task Force Results

[sabra]

Source: DOD

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates received the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health results and forwarded them to the Congress on June 14. The department will have six months to develop and implement a corrective action plan.

“This report points to significant shortfalls in achieving goals and taking care of our service members and their families,” said Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. “We will continue to address the need for mental health care in order to reinforce our commitment to providing the best care in the world to our service members and their families who deserve no less.”

Significant findings include:


* Mental health care stigma remains pervasive and is a significant barrier to care.
* Mental health professionals are not sufficiently accessible to service members and their families.
* There are significant gaps in the continuum of care for psychological health.
* The military system does not have enough resources, funding or personnel to adequately support the psychological health of service members and their families in peace and during conflict.

Implementation of recommendations and remedies to support our service members has already begun, to include:


* Military services have established dozens of deployment health clinics around the country.
* Mental health providers have been embedded in line units in Iraq and Afghanistan to perform initial treatment for combat stress and post -traumatic stress disorder.
* Service members are receiving additional mental health training to de-stigmatize when they need to reach out for help.
* The services are currently proactively exploring options to adequately resource their mental health care providers.


Read more: http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11015

[InkAddict]

1. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Now, in follow-up, do we tie up loose ends or just have the "mercs" show Amerika the value of rendition, lawless detainment, and de-construction of foreign neighborhoods and families.

[peacebuzzard]

2. Informative link.

I knew the mental health treatment and services was very sadly lacking in resources. Just now I understand how enormously lacking it is.
What a monster the health system has become. It is so hard to obtain services of any type for illnesses and for so long the mental health issue has been neglected and pushed under the rug.

Even in the civilian sector the treatment centers are suffering with long wait lists, inadequate staffing and unfortunately the mentally ill could manifest as an aberration of society and possibly could lead the untreated patient to lead marginal behavior that subjects them to fines, imprisonment, drugs and life in the shadowy fringe close to endangering themselves or someone else.

I know this subject too well as I have a disabled sister(and a military survivor dependent) who has suffered her whole life with mental illness. It is devastating, to say the least.

Thanks for the thorough post.