Seek Help for PTSD

Army medic Staff Sgt. Meg Krause recognized she had PTSD and had the courage to seek the help she needed. Click on the below link to hear SSG Krause speak about her PTSD.

This PSA comes from the Real Warriors Campaign. Visit Real Warriors online at realwarriors.net.
Posted On: 11/4/2009
Source: Real Warriors

http://www.health.mil/MediaRoom/Default.aspx?ID=642

Shinseki promises help for homeless veterans

By Kimberly Hefling – The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Nov 4, 2009 15:38:39 EST

WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Tuesday unveiled a plan to end veterans’ homelessness in five years, saying that without action the improvements of recent years could be lost because of the bad economy.  Shinseki said the VA will spend $3.2 billion next year to reduce homelessness among veterans and is working to strengthen partnerships with other government agencies and service organizations. He said he recognizes that a goal of zero homeless veterans is ambitious but that he wants a high target so that everyone puts in their best efforts.  “My name is Shinseki and I’m here to end veteran homelessness,” he said at the beginning of a speech to 1,200 service providers at a VA summit.  In the past, the VA focused largely on getting homeless veterans off the streets, but Shinseki said he wants to prevent them from ever going homeless. One area for potential improvement, he said, is finding jobs and homes for the estimated 56,000 veterans who leave prisons each year.  About one-third of all adult homeless men and nearly one-fifth of all homeless adults served in the military.  About 3 percent of the overall homeless population served in Iraq or Afghanistan. About 3,700 from the recent wars have been seen in VA homeless outreach programs and more than 550 have been treated in a VA-connected residential program.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/ap_shinseki_homeless_veterans_110309/

Sen. blocking bill: Objection is cost, not vets

By Rick Maze – Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 4, 2009 13:03:46 EST

The senator holding up consideration of an omnibus veterans’ health bill doesn’t hate veterans and their families, but he does hate the idea of creating new benefits without paying for them, his spokesman says.  Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is using Senate rules to block a vote on S 1963, a major veterans bill, unless he has the chance to offer amendments to pay for the new benefits it creates, especially stipends, health benefits, counseling and other programs aimed at family caregivers of seriously wounded combat veterans.  Coburn spokesman John Hart said the senator has questions about the new benefit, wondering why, if it is such a good thing for families, it is limited to helping only those of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans. But the main objection is cost.  “We are at a point in our history when we have to start paying for things,” Hart said.  Coburn has been in discussions with Senate leaders about the bill, but he objects to plans to pass the Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009 by voice vote and without amendments, Hart said. He is willing to let the bill be brought up for debate, as long as he gets the chance to amend it to provide a way to pay for the new benefits.  One of the ideas would be to divert unspent money for economic stimulus projects to cover veterans benefit costs, Hart said. Other ideas, like cutting other programs, are also under consideration, Hart said.  Hart’s comments come as 13 major military and veterans’ groups are urging Senate leaders to move forward despite Coburn’s objections. There has been no word if this might happen, but there has been a flurry of discussion about what it might take to get the Senate to approve the measure before Veterans’ Day.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/11/military_coburnhold_veteransbill_110409w/

Mental health pros meet to consider treatments for veterans

Posted 11/3/2009   Updated 11/4/2009
by Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

11/3/2009 – NORFOLK, Va. (AFNS) — Improving mental health care for servicemembers and veterans requires a coordinated effort beyond health care providers and the military community, the Pentagon’s top mental health expert said here. Opening the second Warrior Resilience Conference Nov. 3, Army Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Loree K. Sutton, director of the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, asked the more than 400 attendees to learn from each other and the presenters as military specialists look for the best way to build psychological resilience in the force. The conference brings together line supervisors, clinicians, care providers and experts from around the United States to deal with the signature psychological injuries of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. The general set the tone early about the scope of the problem. “As a nation, we have never asked so much from so few on behalf of so many,” General Sutton said. “Failure is not an option. The needs of our warriors, our veterans, their family members, must come first.” Candor, transparency, speed and accountability are non-negotiable virtues for treating those in the field. Real, measurable results must guide the effort as it moves forward, she said. “And we must work as a team,” she added. “This is not about competition.” General Sutton joked that her office, which serves as a clearinghouse for treatments, steals the good ideas of others. “Yes. Of course we do!” she said. “We exist so we can look over the horizon and we can dig into the other agencies. “It is our privilege to leave no stone unturned in finding leading practices and promising principles … so we can catalyze new knowledge and action and we can accelerate positive change,” General Sutton said as she called for a Manhattan Project-type of national unity and effort to help those most affected. The invisible wounds of war are a public health challenge, General Sutton said, and the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are not the sole owners of the effort. People and communities across the United States have to participate as well, the general said.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123175815

Israel’s First Secure ER Protects Patients from Chemical Warfare

Published: 10/27/09, 8:13 PM / Last Update: 10/27/09, 8:23 PM

(IsraelNN.com) The Rambam Hospital in Haifa dedicated this week a new $14 million emergency facility that provides protection from missiles and chemical weapons that Israel believes may be in Hizbullah’s possession. The hospital was one of hundreds of civilian targets that came under fire by the terrorist organization in the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006. The new emergency room is the first stage of a plan that includes the establishment of a secure underground hospital for 1,730 patients, a children’s hospital and facilities for cancer care and for cardiac treatment, and a tower for clinical research. Government sources provided one quarter of the construction costs, and private donors and organizations provided the remainder. The new emergency room complex, when completed, will be more than three times larger than the previous facility, covering three-quarters of an acre with the ability to treat 60 patients simultaneously, according to Rambam Health Care Campus director Prof. Rafi Beyar.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134086

Virulent Strain of MRSA Resists Treatment

Type that causes bloodstream infections can be quickly fatal, study finds

SUNDAY, Nov. 1 (HealthDay News) — New research holds bad news for health officials worried about a potentially lethal infection called MRSA that haunts hospitals: A strain that infects the bloodstream is five times more deadly than other strains. To make matters worse, the USA600 strain appears to be at least partially immune to an antibiotic that’s used to treat the condition, the researchers have found. A full half of patients infected with the strain died within a month, according to a study scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, held Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 in Philadelphia. That’s nearly five times the death rate of other people infected with MRSA, and 10 to 30 percent of those who acquire MRSA infections in the bloodstream die within a month, the study found. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, causes infections in the skin and bloodstream. It can also infect surgical wounds and cause pneumonia. In most cases, it sickens people in the hospital, but cases are becoming more common outside the health-care community, according to information in a news release from the Henry Ford Health System.

http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=632611

A Combat Role, and Anguish, Too

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: October 31, 2009

For Vivienne Pacquette, being a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder means avoiding phone calls to her sons, dinner out with her husband and therapy sessions that make her talk about seeing the reds and whites of her friends’ insides after a mortar attack in 2004.   As with other women in her position, hiding seems to make sense. Post-traumatic stress disorder distorts personalities: some veterans who have it fight in their sleep; others feel paranoid around children. And as women return to a society unfamiliar with their wartime roles, they often choose isolation over embarrassment.  Many spend months or years as virtual shut-ins, missing the camaraderie of Iraq or Afghanistan, while racked with guilt over who they have become.  “After all, I’m a soldier, I’m an NCO, I’m a problem solver,” said Mrs. Pacquette, 52, a retired noncommissioned officer who served two tours in Iraq and more than 20 years in the Army. “What’s it going to look like if I can’t get things straight in my head?”  Never before has this country seen so many women paralyzed by the psychological scars of combat. As of June 2008, 19,084 female veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan had received diagnoses of mental disorders from the Department of Veterans Affairs, including 8,454 women with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress — and this number does not include troops still enlisted, or those who have never used the V.A. system.    Their mental anguish, from mortar attacks, the deaths of friends, or traumas that are harder to categorize, is a result of a historic shift. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has quietly sidestepped regulations that bar women from jobs in ground combat. With commanders needing resources in wars without front lines, women have found themselves fighting on dusty roads and darkened outposts in ways that were never imagined by their parents or publicly authorized by Congress. And they have distinguished themselves in the field.   Psychologically, it seems, they are emerging as equals. Officials with the Department of Defense said that initial studies of male and female veterans with similar time outside the relative security of bases in Iraq showed that mental health issues arose in roughly the same proportion for members of each sex, though research continues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/us/01trauma.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&sq=A%20combat%20role%20and%20anguish%20too&st=cse&scp=1

Lone senator holds up veterans bill

By Rick Maze – Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 2, 2009 17:01:59 EST

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is trying to bring pressure on the Senate to ignore tradition and bring a veterans health care bill up for debate despite the anonymous hold on the bill placed by a senator. The bill in question is S 1963, the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009, which includes three top priorities of the veterans group. It contains a package of improvements for female veterans, including more training for mental health providers in treating sexual trauma, a pilot program to offer child care so that veterans who have children find it easier make appointments, and a trial counseling program in which newly separated female veterans would be treated in retreat-like settings. It also would expand mental health programs for veterans in rural areas by contracting with local community mental health centers, and expand mental health services for the immediate families of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Improvement programs for homeless veterans also are included — a high priority for the Obama administration. Although it is not one of the priority items for IAVA, another key part of the bill is a precedent-setting program that would pay stipends to family members who provide care to severely disabled veterans, rather than having the veteran institutionalized or receive regular at-home nursing care. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman and chief sponsor of the bill, said the legislation would provide living stipends, health care, counseling and support for family caregivers.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/11/military_veteransbill_delayed_110209w/