Advocates Question Adequacy of Veterans Mental Services
Advocates are questioning whether the military is providing adequate levels of mental health care for soldiers returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nationally, a backlog of disability claims by soldiers is approaching one million and waits of six months to receive care are not uncommon, according to veterans group Swords to Plowshares. At the Veterans Affairs facility in West Los Angeles, psychiatrists have caseloads of as many as 400 to 500 patients at one time, and those numbers are growing, according to Jonathan Sherin, associate chief of psychiatry and mental health.
- "Broken Veterans Who Need Care Find System in Stress" (Lopez, Los Angeles Times, 11/11).
- "Veterans Services Inadequate To Deal With Trauma of War" (Woodall, Oakland Tribune, 11/10).