Army adding 200 mental health professionals to deal with wartime effects

Cavalry soldiers inside a Bradley fighting vehicle after the Bradley hit a roadside bomb. The soldiers were en route to a medical station when a comrade was hit after they encountered sporadic sniper fire for about two hours during a house clearing mission in the Tahrir neighborhood of Baqouba on March 30.

WASHINGTON — Overwhelmed by the number of soldiers returning from war with mental problems, the Army is planning to hire at least 25 percent more psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers...

“As the war has gone on, PTSD and other psychological effects of war have increased,” said Col. Elspeth Ritchie, psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.

“The number of [mental health workers] that was adequate for a peacetime military is not adequate for a nation that’s been at war,” she said in an interview...

About 35 percent of soldiers are seeking some kind of mental health treatment a year after returning home under a program that screens returning troops for physical and mental health.

Read the rest at Army Times

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