GAO to investigate mental health services for Iraq veterans at Fort Carson

The investigative arm of Congress said Friday it will send a team to Fort Carson to examine mental health care for Iraq war veterans after complaints that some soldiers with brain damage have been misdiagnosed.

Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs, has come under close scrutiny amid rising national concern about the Army's treatment of Iraq veterans with brain injuries and mental health problems.

Marcia Crosse, health care director for the Government Accountability Office, told The Associated Press that the team will visit soon, but no date had been set.

"We welcome all visits to look into the systems," Dee McNutt, a spokeswoman for Fort Carson, said Friday.

The advocacy group Veterans for America has said it is looking into as many as 40 cases where Fort Carson soldiers with brain damage or stress-related injuries may have been misdiagnosed with personality disorders. The GAO is aware of those cases, Crosse said, but the visit will look at systemwide mental health issues.

"We can show them cases where Army rules have been violated. And this is just a beginning. We know of cases elsewhere," said Stephen Robinson, director of veterans affairs for the advocacy group.

Fort Carson released a study last month that found that nearly 2,400 of the 13,400 troops it had sent to Iraq, or 18 percent, suffered at least some brain damage from insurgents' explosive devices.

The report also said 276 soldiers at Fort Carson have been discharged since 2003 because of personality disorders, and 56 of them also had post-traumatic stress disorder. An unspecified number of the soldiers with PTSD had suffered traumatic brain injury, the report said.

It said none of the PTSD cases was serious, and therefore none of the soldiers had been examined by a medical board before being discharged. None of the 276 will receive disability pay or medical benefits.

Fort Carson is the first Army post to announce it will try using brain-scan equipment to help detect brain injuries in soldiers returning from Iraq. The equipment is not generally used in the Army, although a congressional task force this week recommended that it be employed throughout the service.

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On the Net:

Army medical guidelines: https://www.hrc.army.mil/site/Active/TAGD/Pda/pdapage.htm