The Veterans Administration continues its shameful fraud against veterans

[UTUSN]

What, 100% of the VA's employees are veterans?!1


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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/042408dnnatveterans.2a94a91.html

VA lying about number of veteran suicides, senator charges

http://www.salon.com/news/special/coming_home/2009/04/08/ta

"I am under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD"

A secret recording reveals the Army may be pushing its medical staff not to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder. The Army and Senate have ignored the implications.

Editor's note: Last June, during a medical appointment, a patient named "Sgt. X" recorded an Army psychologist at Fort Carson, Colo., saying that he was under pressure not to diagnose combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. ....

.... evidence of something wounded soldiers and their advocates have long suspected -- that the military does not want Iraq veterans to be diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that obligates the military to provide expensive, intensive long-term care, including the possibility of lifetime disability payments. And, as Salon will explore in a second article Thursday, after the Army became aware of the tape, the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to investigate its implications, despite prodding from a senator who is not on the committee. The Army then conducted its own internal investigation -- and cleared itself of any wrongdoing.

He wanted to find out why the psychologist had told the medical evaluation board that handles disability payments that Sgt. X did not, in fact, have PTSD, but instead an "anxiety disorder," which could substantially lower the amount of benefits he would receive ....

"OK," McNinch told Sgt. X. "I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS ." McNinch told him that Army medical boards were "kick back" his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have "serious PTSD issues."

"Unfortunately," McNinch told Sgt. X, "yours has not been the only case ... I and other are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It's not fair. I think it's a horrible way to treat soldiers, but unfortunately, you know, now the V.A. is jumping on board, saying, 'Well, these people don't have PTSD,' and stuff like that." ....

...the pressure to misdiagnose came from the former head of Fort Carson's Department of Behavioral Health. That colonel, an Army psychiatrist, is now at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "This was pressure that the commander of my Department of Behavioral Health put on me at that time," he said. Since McNinch is a civilian employed by the Army, the colonel could not order him to give a specific, lesser diagnosis to soldiers. Instead, McNinch said, the colonel would "refuse to concur with me, or argue with me, or berate me" when McNinch diagnosed soldiers with PTSD. "It is just very difficult being a civilian in a military setting." ....

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[mmonk]

1. My cousin works for the VA and says anytime she mentions

things such as the short changing care of the vets or their dismissing their conditions such as PTSD, her superiors tell her "we take care of veterans" and there is no further discussion

[UTUSN]

2. A civilian doctor said he worked for a short while in the VA and

had to struggle with Admin over his medical diagnoses, that the RULE was "administrative decisions" as opposed to "medical".

But to vets and social workers, the VA is WELL known.

[mmonk]

3. At times, my cousin has worried if she would keep her job

or if the administration considered her a trouble maker. Just in case, she has documented some things.