Soldier’s new battle – mental health care

published 3.28.07

The Army knew Spec. Evan Mettie of Selah had post-traumatic stress disorder after his first tour of Iraq but did nothing to treat it, his mother told a Senate committee Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

    So her son dealt with his problems himself — by drinking, Denise Mettie testified, according to a transcript provided by the office of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

    Although doctors in Balaad managed to remove shrapnel from his brain, his mother said finding adequate care afterward was a frustrating process — especially when Mettie became healthy enough to leave the intensive care unit at the Seattle veterans hospital.

    Denise Mettie said she signed away her son's health-care options without realizing it, agreeing to a medical retirement for her son only weeks after the explosion outside of Baji, Iraq, north of Baghdad.

    Now, with a recent CT scan showing a fluid buildup in his brain, Evan Mettie faces transfer from a "coma stimulation" program in California to a nursing home near his home.

    From there, he is likely to be sent home to continue his rehab.

    Denise Mettie, who quit her job at U.S. Bank to help care for her son, worries about his treatment and struggles with bills totaling thousands of dollars for motels, food and other expenses.

    She told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that her family's story is typical of what families of returning veterans face.

    "At the very beginning, there was a (Veterans Administration) doctor who said, 'You know, he's not going to come any further, let's put him in a nursing facility and let you get on with life,' " Mettie said. "I was not ready to give up on him then and I'm not now. If there is a private rehab that will take him, I'm going to get him there and finagle the finances by hook or by crook."

    He is currently awaiting an evaluator from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to see if that facility can accept him.

    "Although I don't know who will pay for this care should they accept him, RIC's answer will determine Evan's future," his mother told the committee. "He will either progress with more rehab or go home to a local skilled nursing facility until our house is adapted."

    Denise Mettie said senators should know that patients with traumatic brain injury or TBI — and their families — "need time to adjust to the reality of their situations." She said it was unfair for the Army to begin the retirement process just 17 days after Evan's injury — especially since retirement limits health care options.

    "Give us time to get our feet under us and understand what we are dealing with," she said.

    TBI patients and families also need more options, she said. While the VA is improving programs for brain injuries, many private hospitals have years of experience in treating and rehabilitating such patients.

    "It is unfair to deny us access to the same level of care that you would choose for your children," she told members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

    Sen. Murray told Mettie that "our country owes you and your son an apology. Your son fought a war for our country. You shouldn't have had to fight every day to get him the care he deserves."

    Murray, a senior member of the veterans committee, said she is frustrated that the Bush administration has not fully accounted for the needs of injured service members. She and other lawmakers also said years of communication gaps between the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments have yet to be fixed.

    "War is expensive and if we don't face the full costs of war — including caring for our veterans — we'll never be able to get the resources and help families like Evan's need," Murray said. "We need the truth, so we can set the right budget and the right policies."

    Murray said she was working to include more than $4 billion to improve treatment and care for wounded soldiers in an emergency war-spending bill being debated in the Senate this week.

    Referring to well-publicized problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Murray said the administration must make more than cosmetic changes to improve care for injured service members.

    "It's easy to whitewash a moldy wall. It's a lot harder to make sure that our veterans are taken care of every step of the way," she said.

    The Army's new acting surgeon general said Tuesday she is concerned about long-term morale of U.S. troops because the military lacks money to hire enough nurses and mental health specialists to treat thousands of service members coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

    "When the original plans were made, we did not take into consideration we could be in a long war," said Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, who became surgeon general earlier this month after Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley was forced to resign in a scandal over shoddy outpatient treatment and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed.

by staff and AP reports