PTSD in War Veterans

Thesis Statement

Many military veterans come back suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to the situations they have been exposed to.

Introduction

PTSD is an anxiety disorder often found in soldiers who have experienced psychological trauma as a result of violent combat. A traumatic event can include child abuse, a car crash military combat exposure and much more. How likely a person is to acquire PTSD depends on a number of things? It depends on the intensity of the trauma, how close one was to the event, how much one felt in control of the situation etc.

Discussion

The enormous increase in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation enduring Freedom (OEF) veterans seeking Veterans Affairs health services has left the government and the VA ill prepared to meet the new demands for its services, as they are still treating veterans from past wars. Since the start of the war, the number of veterans receiving care from the department has doubled, however, the vet staff has only increased its personnel by 10%.4 In 2004 it was stated by the Special Committee on PTSD, which is a department within the Department of Veterans Affairs, that the VA ? does not have sufficient capacity to meet the needs of new combat veterans while still providing veterans of past wars. So why don?t they have sufficient capacity? If more veterans are seeking help, why has the department only increased its staff by 10%? The committee says that they simply do not have the resources, meaning money and qualified professionals.

This initial proposal would have also shafted some military veterans. This plan would have forced veterans with privately held health insurance coverage to submit medical claims to that insurance company instead of the Department of Veteran?s Affairs. This would have saved the department around 530 million dollars a year which is an injustice in the eyes of some veteran support groups and some government officials within congress. While the budget proposal would expand coverage to 500,000 more veterans, President Obama did sympathize with some of these groups. He eventually threw out this plan due to the fact that the VA has an obligation to support all military veterans, not just the majority. The issue at hand is complex and requires a better solution than massively increasing funding to the department.

A better choice than increasing funding to the VA would be to refer some of the department's responsibilities to other qualified sources. Considering that the department of Veterans Affairs has other issues to deal with outside of treating veterans for PTSD and other mental health issues; it is only logical that it spread out some of its responsibilities. In the case of mental health, it would make sense for the department to initially evaluate all veterans suffering from PTSD and other mental health issues, and then classify the cases. After classifying the cases, the VA could refer or outsource some of its PTSD specific services to local governments. Furthermore, local governments could then refer these victims to private ...