US military veterans face inadequate care after returning from war – report

Study for Congress has 'serious misgivings' about government's treatment of US troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan us military veterans

Almost half of the 2.2 million troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan report difficulties on their return home, but many receive inadequate care from the US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs, according to a new study published on Tuesday. The Institute of Medicine report, requested by Congress and funded by the Pentagon, expressed "serious misgivings" about methods used to treat the "significant numbers" of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and substance use disorder. It cited tools and treatments used by the DOD which had "no clear scientific evidence base" and said more needed to be done to evaluate their effectiveness...

...The 500-plus page report found that 44% of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reported difficulties. Up to one in five suffers from PTSD, while a similar number have mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), the report says. Some have overlapping health conditions, most commonly PTSD, substance use disorder, depression and symptoms related to mild TBI. It noted that the unemployment rate among veterans aged 18-24 was over 30%, compared to 16% for civilians...

...Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which represents 200,000 people, said the IoM report was "spot on". "It confirms a lot of things that our members are telling us on the ground," said Tarantino. "The majority of veterans don't have problems but the ones that do, the Department of Defense are just too slow to implement changes." Citing the IOM's recommendation for the DoD and the VA to have linked databases, Tarantino said it was "astonishing and inexcusable" that it hadn't already happened.In April 2009, President Obama promised a unified lifetime electronic health record for armed servicemen and women "from the day they first enlist to the day that they are laid to rest". But four years later, said Tarantino, it still hasn't happened. The inability of the VA and the DoD to "electronically talk to each other" remains one of the biggest obstacles to getting quality of care, he said...