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USA Today: VA sees shortfall of mental health specialists
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As thousands of additional veterans seek mental health care every month, the Departm
ent of Veterans Affairs is short of psychiatrists, with 20% vacancy rates in much of the country served by VA hospitals, according to department data.
n Montana, where veterans wait an average of five weeks to begin counseling, an eight-bed wing of a mental health facility at Fort Harrison has been vacant for nine months because of a lack of psychiatrists, the VA says. The Rocky Mountain VA region needs to fill nearly one of four psychiatrist positions.
The vacancies occur at a time when the number of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder is increasing by about 10,000 every three months, what experts say is the cumulative effect of a decade of war, VA data show.
More than 230,000 servicemembers have suffered traumatic brain injuries ranging from mild to severe since 2000, according to Pentagon data.
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