FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, March 08, 2013
CONTACT: Murray Press Office
202-224-2834
Senator Murray’s
Statement on Army Review of Behavioral Health Diagnoses and Treatment Since
2001
(Washington, D.C.) - Today, U.S. Senator
Patty Murray issued the following statement on the Army Task Force on Behavioral
Health’s Corrective Action Plan that was released after the Task Force did a
comprehensive, Army-wide study on mental health diagnoses going back to 2001.
The report found significant problems associated with the Army’s efforts to
diagnose, evaluate and therefore properly treat soldiers with behavioral health
conditions including PTSD. The study’s findings come at a time when the suicide rate among
active duty service members is outpacing combat deaths.
Senator Murray asked the Army to initiate the
review after hundreds
of servicemembers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in her home state had their PTSD and other
behavioral health diagnoses overturned by a team of
forensic psychiatrists only to have those diagnoses restored after their stories
surfaced and Murray asked for their cases to be reviewed. The episode allowed
Senator Murray to continue to push the Army and the Pentagon on the lack of any
uniform approach to properly diagnosing and treating behavioral health
conditions in the military.
“I am pleased that the Army completed
this review and has vowed to make fixes over the next year, though I am
disappointed it has taken more than a decade of war to get to this point. Many
of the 24 findings and 47 recommendations in this report are not new. Creating a
universal electronic health record, providing better rural health access, and
standardizing the way diagnoses are made for instance have been lingering
problems for far too long. Our servicemembers and their families deserve
better.
“The sheer number of changes this
report recommends is indicative of the size and scope of the problem. This
report lays out shortcomings in diagnosing, identifying, and providing
standardized care for PTSD and a wide range of behavioral health issues. It also
focuses on the painfully long delays that have plagued a joint disability system
that many servicemembers and their families have given up on. And, according to
those who led this review and are tasked with implementing these changes, this
isn’t an issue of not having the resources to make changes. Instead, it is
simply a matter of problems that have been allowed to persist while far too many
soldiers fell through the cracks. That is unacceptable.
“I’ve made clear to Army Secretary
McHugh that I want the most aggressive solutions to these problems, not just
what checks a box so they can say they fixed the problem. If we continue to
simply react to these problems as they arise we’ll never succeed in fully
enacting the systematic changes that are necessary. The only way to truly make
headway on reversing the troubling trends we have seen, including the fact that
suicide deaths continue to outpace combat deaths, is to change the culture
associated with identifying and treating behavioral health conditions.
“This report came about because
servicemembers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state were left to fend
for themselves in a system that was broken and penalized them for having PTSD.
At JBLM, hundreds of servicemembers saw their PTSD diagnoses reversed or
changed, and it became abundantly clear that the DoD had no uniform system for
diagnosing or treating these invisible wounds. My commitment to those
servicemembers and their families at JBLM continues to be that I’ll do
everything possible to ensure that military families like theirs never have to
go through what they did in Washington state or elsewhere. And that is exactly
why I pushed for this study and why I will continue to push Secretary Hagel and
Secretary McHugh to make the changes needed to properly diagnose and treat all
servicemembers.
“I believe that the Army wants to do
the right thing by the soldiers who have sacrificed so much for us, and that the
corrective action they are taking now is not solely the result of political
pressure. Though there are places where the action plan could go further, I
believe this plan is a good starting point to make real changes for our
soldiers. I intend to get regular updates on the progress the Army makes in
implementing the solutions in this study and will hold them to their word on
completing these recommendations in a timely fashion.”
###
Matt
McAlvanah
Communications
Director
U.S. Senator Patty Murray
202-224-2834 -
press office
202--224-0228 -
direct
Twitter: @mmcalvanah