largest barrier in mental health treatment
Requesting David Adams to write 40 pages on attached research proposal that he started on“How meeting the needs and promoting the physical, psychological and emotional health of Wounded Warriors will be one of the greatest Public Health Challenges”.
The physical, emotional and mental well being challenges analysis for veterans
Introduction
This proposal is regarding the challenges of providing the health care services to the veterans. The question is “How meeting the needs and promoting the physical, psychological and emotional health of Wounded Warriors will be one of the greatest Public Health Challenges”. In this regard the relevant literature is reviewed to justify the thesis proposal.
The wounded warriors are warriors returning from war and they are often subject of physical, emotional and mental health issues. This report contains information regarding the issues of veterans after returning from war. The health issues challenges are understood by taking in to considerations of various reports.
The research in this area has revealed that combating stress and mental health conditions are issues highly prevalent in the wounded warriors. They are often sustained the serious injuries. There are many researches that have reported that the issues such as the post traumatic stress disorders are not addressed. It is found that the department of veteran’s affairs are not equipped well with the facilities to address these challenges. The 2010 VA study revealed that the there were nearly 50000 veterans had new PTSD diagnosis and only fewer than 10 percent have received the evidence based treatment for mental health and in them 20 percent of the veterans did not receive a single follow up for mental health in the first year after diagnosis. This presents the inability of Veteran affairs to deal with the issues.
In this regard the wounded warrior’s project had called the department of veteran affairs secretary Robert McDonald for acting quickly to build trust with the veterans and for improving the aces of services of health care in timely manner. The secretary had spent 100 days to understand the process issues, accountability and systematic management at veteran affairs. But spite of learning the valuable aspects of veteran affairs, he was not showing timely intervention to help the issues of veterans. It is reported that the culture and history of VA was not supportive for warriors and there was no remarkable result. So the WPP called the secretary of VA. This presents the facts that the VA is not functioning well to address the issues of healthcare that are related with the physical, emotional and mental health of warriors. The WWP initiative was to close many gaps in VA health system for better serving the warriors. The stand of the WWP is that there are lack of both access and continuity of care in the health system and for creating a truly effective mental health system VA should implement these suggested measures
· Implementation of section 304 of the public law that directs the VA to start peer support program and offer employment to returning wounded warriors.
· Launch training and education program for the medical staff regarding the military culture for forging a better connection with veterans.
· The implementation of VA policies must be done that does not deliver on timely basis.
· The coordination must be improved between the medical facilities and centres of vet and emphasis must be placed to put new vet centres near the military facilities.
In another article, it is found that VA was unable to link between the mental health and economic empowerment of warriors so it has considered that it needs revising and officials also confirmed this that the mental health issue places a greater effect on warriors earning. It is identified that the mental health conditions should be equitable and fills the lost earning power of warrior. The WWP has urged VA to change its rating criteria for mental health to properly address the problems of warriors.
Along with it the WWP has seen many changes are needed to implement the Wounded warrior health programs and these are working as challenges for health initiative.
These are mentioned here. The VA organizational structure is complex one and bureaucratic that makes slow decision making. So the suggestion is offered that organization should be flattened to makes it easier for the warriors to navigate through the organization structure. The organization changes that are made look promising but lack the action planning. Due to this it is suggested that it should contain the action plan. It is found that veterans are unable to receive the physical and mental health services promptly and there are some data to support the health condition for it. 40 percent of the veterans have difficulty to schedule the appointment that is considered the single largest barrier in mental health treatment. Also it is revealed that 22 veterans are committing suicide so it becomes imperative to improve the existing system to impart a valuable service to the veterans.
The failure of services to provide emotional, mental and physical support can be understood by the initiative of WWP that demands that promotion of stronger efforts to prevent the military sexual trauma and easing the burden of showing evidences of this trauma. This presents the information that the emotional and mental support are not up to the standard level to support wounded warriors causes.
The initiatives taken by the WWP presents facts that show that the current system of VA is inefficient in dealing with issues of veterans. The initiative of seeking the systematic review of veterans and analysing the effectiveness of DOD and VA to understand the gaps show that the system is not functioning well and there are many loopholes. The Federal recovery coordination program is also marred by such deficiency and it is recommended that veterans needing the help from this program must receive the assistance quickly. The initiative of improving the operation, effectiveness and efficiency of retirement process of medical and DOD-VA coordination suggest that these areas are not functioning at optimal level causing challenges for the enforcement of health programs for veterans. The laws are also not favouring and the initiative of revising current laws to make them for favourable show that the current laws are also working as a challenge for the implementation of health programs. The reforms related with the warrior transition process are also present the fact that effective support is not established for supporting the mental, emotional and physical health of warriors.
There is one area that must be addressed is the prevalent high rate of post traumatic stress disorder commonly found in wounded warriors. The mental health issues of warrior are obstructing to obtain employment and according to survey conducted by WWP, it is found that one in three respondents have such problem. More than two third respondents complained about the emotional problems. Only 8.5 percent of respondents have not faced the mental health concerns that obviously lead to physical health concerns as well. This finding suggests that the mental, emotional and physical healths of warriors are not addressed. This finding forced WWP to take some initiatives such as closing the gaps in health system, promoting effective VA procedure, and promoting stronger efforts to prevent the trauma of sexual assault.
If the funds that are donated for the purpose of serving wounded warriors are taken, the wounded warrior project that is a charity based organization has done a good work to allocate the funds to wounded warrior but there are lots of improvement needs to be done. The rating given by better business bureau to WWP is good and it confirms that the organization is meeting the 20 standards for accountability of charity. The organization receives D rating from American institute of philanthropy. It has received c+ rating from charity watch and three stars from four stars by charity navigator. All these are showing mixed results for the use of fund given to WWP. So it can be concluded that WWP program are average in fund allocation and there must be more improvement needed in this regard.
In another report it is found that the ASD and PTSD are challenges prevalent for wounded warriors and there must be actions from the VA. It is recommended that psycho educational information must be offered and repeated assessment must be done for the veterans. All these factors suggest that the challenges of serving the veterans are not mitigated.
All these factors show that there are various challenges for providing public health care services to veterans. It can be recommended that public health services can be privatised to provide better health care facilities to the veterans.
