Fort Carson – Congressional staffers ended a two-day fact-finding mission to assess mental-health care at Fort Carson on Tuesday, vowing to visit other military installations to assess their care.
Representatives from the Colorado offices of Sens. Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar, and Reps. John Salazar and Doug Lamborn met in closed-door sessions with 21 soldiers and their families to learn more about the struggle to get care for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
Representatives also came from the offices of presidential hopefuls Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, and Sens. John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Joe Lieberman and Kit Bond.
Salazar said his staff heard from soldiers and families about “the stigma surrounding mental-health treatment in the military and that many times their injuries are treated only with large doses of medication and nothing else.”
Salazar, who has requested hearings on mental-health issues before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the challenge affects the entire military, not only Fort Carson.
Veterans for America, an advocacy group, has said too many soldiers with PTSD or TBI have fallen through the cracks. They’ve been denied medical care and discharged for discipline problems that VFA says are symptoms of their illnesses. VFA plans a news conference today.
In April, nine senators signed a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the nation’s military hospitals are providing quality mental-health care to returning soldiers and Marines.
“Mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, TBI, it is an Army-wide challenge,” said Lt. Col. Dave Johnson, spokesman for Fort Carson.
The visit this week is the fourth since January by members of Congress or their representatives.
Johnson said soldiers say more providers are needed at the base, especially at peak deployment times, when a brigade returns from Iraq at the same time another one is leaving.
