Washington – The Department of Veterans Affairs failed to fully spend a promised $300 million since 2005 to fill critical gaps in mental health services for returning troops and others, congressional investigators said.
The money was supposed to be used to improve awareness of the VA’s mental health programs and provide better access to them for troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, women and other veterans suffering from serious mental illnesses.
But a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday found that the agency underspent the money and that not all of what it did spend went to those programs.
“Veterans expect that wounds suffered in service, be they to mind or body, will be cared for by the nation they served,” Rep. Henry Brown Jr., R-S.C., said during a hearing he chaired Thursday on mental health issues.
The VA didn’t respond to requests for comment on the report.
The hearing was before the health subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
The GAO’s findings became yet another broadside at the VA and the Bush administration, which veterans groups have criticized for cutting benefits and not anticipating how the Iraq war would stretch the capacity of programs to treat the wounded.
The Kansas City Star reported in May that the VA had drastically underestimated the number of troops that would return from Iraq this year suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The GAO reached a similar conclusion in a separate report last week.
