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Fort Drum calls for more psychiatrists to help deal with stresses of Iraq war

Hart Seely, the Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)

It’s not every day that a fellow stands up in public and asks for a shrink.

Wednesday, Roger Ambrose said he’d take a dozen.

“We need to get psychiatrists to come to the North Country,” said Ambrose, director of Jefferson County Community Services, a Watertown-based health care agency. “And I’ll tell you, a child psychologist would be just wonderful.”

Ambrose was hardly alone Wednesday. A steady stream of speakers seconded his wish list during a summit of about 100 regional, state and national health care officials, who gathered at Fort Drum to discuss the challenge of healing the wounds — especially the ones not easily visible — that beset some of the U.S. Army’s most combat-weary units.

“There are a lot of us thinking, when this war is over, we can get back to normal,” said Brig. Gen. Michael T. Harrison Sr., deputy commanding general for support of the 10th Mountain Division. “Well, you’re looking at the new normal.”

As Harrison spoke, 1,100 soldiers from his 10th Mountain Division were enjoying their last hours stateside, preparing to leave this weekend for Iraq. There, they will join the 1st Brigade — about 3,500 troops — which deployed in the fall.

Since 2003, when the first 10th Mountain troops landed in Afghanistan, constant troop deployments and a population boom have sent shock waves upon the North Country’s health care system, a blend of civilian and military institutions.

“What you have here is a very unique way of doing business,” Dr. Carla Hawley-Bowland, commanding general of the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, told the group. “That’s because the Army always decides to put its training in remote places. The Army needs space to train their folks. You can’t find that in urban areas that have lots of medical care. You only find it in rural areas, and that’s where we have to provide the medical care.”

Most Army posts have their own hospital. Fort Drum does not. Instead, it has integrated its medical facilities into the civilian system — a wedding that several speakers applauded Wednesday. But there is one rub:

Not enough doctors. Not enough health care professionals.

Through federal and state funds, several facilities have expanded operations, but the system was overwhelmed last fall, when the 3,500-soldier 2nd Brigade returned from Iraq. Almost immediately, the numbers of troops reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression soared. In February, the post reported so many drunken-driving arrests that the Army began publishing the pictures of offenders in The Blizzard, its community paper.

Also that month, a Washington-based group, Veterans of America, criticized Drum’s mental health programs, saying soldiers were waiting for weeks to get psychiatric counseling. Wednesday, officials said those reports were overblown, and that many of the problems already had been addressed by the time of the group’s report.

But they did not try to understate the challenge of dealing with war stresses.

Todd L. Benham, chief of the behavioral health department at Drum, said annual visits to his clinics have jumped from about 14,000 in 2001 to a pace this year that could hit 26,000.

And cases involving symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder have risen from about 600 in 1999 to 2,190 last year.

To deal with the surge in PTSD cases, the Army sent a team of mental health professionals to Drum and funded 17 new positions. About half of those positions have yet to be filled.

“Two months ago, it was a time that was difficult,” Benham said. “We were in a lot of transition…. Now, you’ve got eight new providers here, and we’re orienting them, and it takes three or four weeks before you feel comfortable … I would think in the next two or three months, once we get our positions established, we’ll be quite functional.”

He said there is a four-week wait for most soldiers to see a professional, though emergency walk-in programs run around the clock.

Benham said he wants the waits to diminish.

“My preference would be at the most two weeks, ideally, one week,” he said.

That means fulfilling Ambrose’s wish list. To lure doctors, the North Country agencies will offer a menu of loan repayment programs, relocation bonuses, housing deals and other incentives.

And a child psychiatrist would be nice.

“It’s a recognized shortfall in our community,” Ambrose said. “We do have child psychiatric services, but those who are providing the services are, frankly, overwhelmed. … We need more.”

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