I’m betting that this is where we finally get to meet Digby, which means I’d really really be there if I could. Whichever gender Digby is, I’ve been saying for years that Digby’s the new Dylan.

… a great way to start a conversation on the issues surrounding child abuse and neglect issues, foster care, social services and support networks and lack thereof, health care, and all sorts of other social and domestic issues that need to be addressed in our nation. Great idea — love this. Kudos to the Richardson campaign folks for pushing this issue forward.

Kudos indeed!

Did y’all see this diary post on DailyKos yesterday? Really wonderful, heartfelt stuff from this mother of 4 in NM:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/14/181858/223

AND…..

…..Bill Richardson promptly accepted the invitation for Prez on the Rez , along with Mike Gravel.

Good Morning Christy,

In reference to the increase in PTSD, “the Army is planning to increase its ranks of psychiatrists and other medical workers by more than 25 percent.”

Army will add mental health workers
it’s a start

Elliott, I so hope the troops and vets – and the Iraqi civilians traumatized by the US invasion and the US Iraq Occupation – all receive the health care and mental health care they need.

They’ll need it for years, if not decades.

Many will need life-long care.

The DOD annoucement treats the Army’s PR problems, but little else.

WASHINGTON — Overwhelmed by the number of soldiers returning from war with mental problems, the Army is planning to increase its ranks of psychiatrists and other medical workers by more than 25 percent.

A contract completed this week but not yet announced calls for spending $33 million to add about 200 psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to help soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health needs, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

If the AP did their sums right, the additional 200 mental health positions represent a 25% increase in staffing.

Umm – so the Army has 800 mental health practitoners…

and they’re adding 200.

Surveys of troops in Iraq have shown that 15 percent to 20 percent have signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress, which can cause flashbacks and other severe reactions.

Total forces in field are 150,000 (roughly?).

The low range estimate of 15% leaves us around 22,500 troops with acute PTSD symptoms in the Iraq theater.

And – if I understand the data (please help if I don’t, pups) the total forces deployed in theater under the “surge” are roughly one-third of the total US forces rotating through Iraq.

So we’re up to 67,000 US Army troops with PTSD symptoms.

And -

IF the Army can find psychologists who choose to join knowig they can be ordered off to assist Gitmo torture, and psychiatrists who will turn a blind eye to the DOD’s redeployment of acutely ill vets to combat duty –

– there will be 1,000 Army “psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers” to treat 67,000 Army patients with PTSD symptoms.

A clinican : patient ratio of 1 : 6,700.

Even Kaiser of Northern California gives their psychiatrists – fully assisted by other mental health professionals – a caseload of around 1,000 patients (or that’s what the recruiter said).

Those are ambulatory adults capable of working. Civilians in peacetime.

Treatment of one single patient with severe PTSD can require dozens – and sometimes hundreds – of clinician hours.

OK – in the DOD’s future Hire-in-Wonderland world, they’ll have 1,000 mental health clinicians inured to the prospect of assisting in torture.

Just the sort of compassionate clinicians you want for your sister, mother, or uncle, right?

And if all the compassionate 1,000 work eighty hour weeks for a year (no vacation) -

they’ll have 1.19 hours per PTSD patient.

Per year.

That’s not enough time to take a trauma history, let alone provide treatment.

NO time for follow-up.

See you in a year, soldier.

Next patient.

PS – Why I am having to calculate this for the AP? Are J-school grads no longer required to comprehend basic arithmetic, much less question “offical” announcemnts?

Why spend tens of thousands of dollars in J-school simply to transcibe Newspeak?

Surely “court reporter” training would give them the same skillset.

Actually, I DID read his bio, and the other links as well. True, in that brief summary he comes off as well experienced and competent. HOWEVER, the bill sat on Bush’s desk since June 4, Gonzales KNEW the ability to install attorneys under the provision in the Patriot Act was about to come to an end, and Bush signed the bill just AFTER Cardona was installed. It’s not a far stretch to believe that it’s more than coincidence that he came in “just under the wire”.

And THIS is a prime example of why politicizing the Justice Department is so very wrong – from now on we have to look at EVERY SINGLE DECISION coming out of the DOJ with suspicion.

Cool. My apologies for inferring, from what you originally said, that you hadn’t looked at all of the relevant facts.

You’re not wrong about the big picture, but some of us have to live and practice law in the Central District of California, and I am frankly skeptical that the Bushies will appoint anyone who would be remotely as good as Cardona.

Steve @ 100

Watching birds is a stress reduction activity..I’m sitting on my sister’s front porch with a laptop watching the Osprey nest in the front yard. The three babies are three weeks old and mom and dad Osprey on full time fishing duty. I am waiting for the Republican’s to say that Osprey are a threat to the fishing industry and the population needs to be reduced by 90%.

Ospreys in the front yard- you are so lucky!
Now I really have to get in the car- traffic into W. Hollywood is probably the usual ugly…

There’s a little hotel on the North Fork of Long Island that has an Osprey nest on it’s property…In the early spring, they train their Osprey cam on it and you can watch as the adults come and go and feed the chicks. Very relaxing.

Sadly, it’s about 9-10 months from the next show.

… a great way to start a conversation on the issues surrounding child abuse and neglect issues, foster care, social services and support networks and lack thereof, health care, and all sorts of other social and domestic issues that need to be addressed in our nation. Great idea — love this. Kudos to the Richardson campaign folks for pushing this issue forward.

Kudos indeed!

Did y’all see this diary post on DailyKos yesterday? Really wonderful, heartfelt stuff from this mother of 4 in NM:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/14/181858/223

think about how many members of our military have been exposed to repeat trips to Iraq and Afghanistan the last few years

Is there anyone out there who can explain the difference in time commitment for the National Guard units that have been called up vs. the “regular” enlistees?

Is there no “contract” that limits the duration of one’s stay in the military or the number of times one can be sent back to Iraq/Afghanistan?

And what about all those troops with the relatively cushy jobs @ the North Korea/South Korea border or in Germany? Are they rotated through Iraq, or would it take too long to train them to get them combat ready?

You’d think at some point time would “run out” on guys who’ve previously enlisted or whose National Guard unit has been called up. On the other hand, I see guys re-enlisting and signing up anew; at least a couple of the services met their monthly goals, although others did not.

Good Morning Christy,

In reference to the increase in PTSD, “the Army is planning to increase its ranks of psychiatrists and other medical workers by more than 25 percent.”

Army will add mental health workers
it’s a start

Actually, if you listen to the NPR report it appears that mental health workers are leaving the armed services in droves. They are too overwhelmed. Another disastrous result of piss poor planning by our great leaders.

I also want to point out that refering to the Stress Injuries as PTSD is a way the military and we as a society in general have of ignoring this problem. Stress injury is an injury to a vital organ, the brain. A disorder is well, kinda fuzzy, we don’t really know what or even if it is, you might just be a complainer after all, etc… There is starting to be brain scan and postmortem work being done that demonstrates the actual structural changes resulting from high levels of sustained stress. The fact that this is not treated as an injury is due in part to our whole screwed up way of looking at mental health but that is a long, off-topic topic. The point here is we should start moving the language to speak the truth rather than mask it and talk about stress injuries.