Discharges for adjustment disorder soar

[unhappycamper]

Discharges for adjustment disorder soar
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Aug 12, 2010 17:41:46 EDT

Two years ago, under congressional pressure, the military changed its policy on separating troops dealing with combat stress for pre-existing personality disorders — an administrative discharge that left those veterans without medical care or other benefits.

Now, veterans advocates say, the personality-disorder discharges have been replaced with similar discharges for “adjustment disorder.” And once again, Congress seems poised to jump in.

Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., plans to send a letter to President Obama asking that the military provide detailed data showing how many people have been discharged for adjustment disorders. In the meantime, Bond’s staff has been gathering more general data that shows discharges for “other designated physical or mental conditions not amounting to disability” — a broad category that includes adjustment disorder — have increased from 1,453 in 2006 to 3,844 last year, an increase of 165 percent.

Over the same time, discharges for personality disorder dropped from 1,072 in 2006 to 260 last year.

“We request your assistance to ensure that a new loophole has not been created that abuses the administrative discharge system by erroneously discharging members of the armed forces who are experiencing symptoms of PTSD and/or TBI, rather than providing them with compassionate medical care worthy of their service and sacrifice,” states a draft copy of Bond’s letter.

[old mark]

1. The military will do anything it can to avoid responsibility to its members

especially those who don't fit in. "Adjustment disorder" is a catchall diagnosis meaning "we don't know what's wrong with this kid, but he does not fit in with the program." Schools use it a lot.
When everything is fucked up, blame the victim...or the lowest ranking person involved.

mark

[ThomCat]

2. Holy shit! Are they EVER going to live up to their promise to

provide care to the vets who came back needing help? :wtf:

We give the pentagon more money out of the federal budget than we give to anything or anywhere else. They are the single biggest drain on our tax dollars, and they aren't willing to spend any of that money on veteran care? They are forcing then men and women on trumped up claims of pre-existing disorders?

:grr:

Every military doctors who participated in this shit, and every higher ups who put this in place and enforce it all need to be booted out. They all need to lose their pay and benefits over this, just like the soldiers they persecuted with these vile tactics. And then complaints should be filed to whatever state medical boards where they are licensed with for all these cumulative professional ethics violations.

Lets see how they like it when they get kicked out, losing everything, and getting a permanent black mark for it that will hound them forever.

:grr:

I can't believe how callous and mean this is. This violates everything a DOCTOR is supposed to stand for. I don't care if they work for the military and they are obligated to follow orders. You don't follow orders that tell you to permanently cause irreparable harm to people, denying them care and making it unlikely that they will ever be able to get care.

:wtf:

Why become a doctor at all if you care so little about helping people in need of medical care that you are able to do this to people, day after day? Wouldn't it be more efficient to got to the School of the Americas, train as a torturer, and transfer to Gitmo or Bagram if this is what they like to do?