The National Council on Disability (NCD), Washington, has released a report recommending improvements in the continuum of health care provided to service members and veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are resulting in injuries that are disabling for many, and potentially disabling for still more, says NCD Chairman John R. Vaughn. "The Department of Defense (DoD) and the Veterans Administration (VA) have initiated a number of improvements in the delivery of health care for service members and veterans with PTSD and TBI," he says. "They are to be congratulated for these efforts, but more needs to be done."
The report, [removed]Invisible Wounds: Serving Service Members and Veterans with PTSD and TBI[/removed], addresses concerns and makes 10 recommendations:
Among them:
- Congress and the agencies responsible for the care of OEF/OIF veterans must redouble the sense of urgency to develop and deploy a complete array of prevention, early intervention, and rehabilitation services for PTSD and TBI.
- Congress should mandate a Secretarial level VA Mental Health Advisory Committee and a Secretarial level TBI Advisory Committee with strong representation from consumers and veterans organizations, with a mandate to evaluate and critique VA’s efforts to upgrade mental health and TBI services and report their findings to both the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Congress.
NCD is an independent federal agency responsible for reviewing and evaluating policies, programs, and practices that promote the full integration, independence, and productivity of people with disabilities, and for advising the executive and legislative branches on matters affecting people with disabilities.
For more information, e-mail Mark S. Quigley, NCD’s director of external affairs.
Source: National Council on Disability
[Source: PR Newswire]
