Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Military Mental Health Cuts Unacceptable

"Degraded access to medical care may also take place under sequestration, Odierno said. The number of mental healthcare providers will decrease instead of going up, he said. The Army has been attempting to increase providers over the past few years to help treat brain injuries and post-traumatic stress. "Before sequestration, we allocated the dollars and positions to increase military and civilian mental health providers," Odierno said. "The problem is there are not enough out there. Now what's going to happen is we're going to have to reduce the number we already have."



This is totally unacceptable! We have a responsibility to those who sacrifice their quality of life to protect our country and freedoms at home and abroad. Too many Servicemembers are in a daily living hell for traumas, physical, mental and combination thereof as a result of deployments. Deployments wear down our servicemen and servicewomen as they have very little recuperation time in between combat and even hardship tours. High stress jobs following or proceeding deployments compound mental and physical strains and wear down the Servicemember and significantly effect their home life. If we sacrifice the support of mental support programs we will see a marked increase in suicide, domestic violence and divorce rates. This is just one of the areas of programs in jeopardy of being cut through sequestration. This isn't a BENEFIT of the job, this is a responsibility our country owes to those needing support for dedicating their lives to our country. Don't just sit on the sidelines and let them be forgotten .... AGAIN!