More help coming for war-weary
Written by
R. Norman Moody
FLORIDA TODAY
Jun 19, 2012
Since 2007, VA nationally has seen a 35 percent increase in the number of veterans receiving mental health services and as a result, increased its mental health staff by 41 percent. In the past three years, it increased its mental health care budget by 39 percent and last year, provided mental health services to 1.3 million veterans.
Just as the number of troops returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan swelled with the end of one war and the draw-down from the other, so did the number of veterans seeking mental health care.
More than one million troops served in those conflicts during the past decade.
A plan announced last week by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to address the growing need for better mental health care for U.S. veterans will mean the Viera VA Outpatient Clinic will almost double its mental health staff.
The national recruitment effort that already has added some mental health professionals at the Viera clinic — a facility that had 23,000 mental health visits last year — will culminate in about six months with 14 positions added to the previous 16.
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