Fort Drum Doctor calls PTSD “behavioral health condition”

Sounds bad to start off with but it ended up getting worse.

Hammond mother fights to get son treated for PTSD
When Rene Schwappach’s son Gerald (“Jerry”) left for Iraq in 2007, she never imagined he would come back “somebody different.”
By: Ashley Halladay, New Richmond News

When Rene Schwappach’s son Gerald (“Jerry”) left for Iraq in 2007, she never imagined he would come back “somebody different.”

As Veterans Day has recently passed, Rene says her son and many other soldiers at Fort Drum in New York are not getting the help and medical treatment America’s soldiers deserve.

“You think if they come back in one piece, everything is going to be all right,” she said. But she said Gerald’s post-traumatic stress disorder has left him anxious, angry and suffering from nightmares nearly every night.

Gerald has been stationed at the Fort Drum New York 10th Division 38th Brigade Warrior Transition Unit since Jan. 12 and feels he is not getting adequate medical care.

After receiving depressed and suicidal phone calls from her son about his treatment and the staff at Fort Drum, Rene flew to New York on Oct. 1 to see what her son was experiencing. She stayed at Fort Drum for 15 days and said she was disgusted with what she saw.

Upon leaving, Rene said, “I never cried so much in my life.”

The idea that PTSD is a “behavioral health condition” is more like a slap in the face to all veterans with PTSD because of what comes with it. Some of the symptoms of PTSD do in fact cause problems with what they do and what they say but if the doctors view PTSD the same as a child needing to be punished and sent to their room because of their behavior then maybe we’re finally getting to the bottom of where all these bad attitudes come from.

When they self-medicate they are punished instead of helped so maybe this is just one more way they end up making our troops pay for having been touched by the hell they were subjected to.

Response

In response to the Schwappach’s allegations of poor medical treatment at Fort Drum, Dr. Todd L. Benham, chief at the Behavioral Health Department, U.S. Army Medical Department Activity, Fort Drum, New York said, “the Fort Drum Behavioral Health Department seeks to provide world-class care to soldiers diagnosed with behavioral health conditions. Any behavioral health condition warrants treatment using the most effective modalities.”

While Rene said soldiers who have psychological needs do not get treated with the care they deserve, Benham said the medical staff at Fort Drum is highly trained in treating soldiers with PTSD and “implement PTSD treatment strategies based on the Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense Clinical Practice Guideline for the Management of Post-Traumatic Stress.”

Rene believes the doctors at Fort Drum are unprofessional and do not genuinely care about the wounded soldiers in the WTU, but in his statement, Beham said, “Providers in the Fort Drum Behavioral Health Department are proud to take care of soldiers and seek to ensure the proper management of their behavioral health condition.”
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Hammond mother fights to get son treated for PTSD

Not a good day of reports on PTSD today at all.