Tagged: Madigan Army Medical Center

In 2010 the tempo of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were saddling the Army’s Medical Treatment Facilities with thousands of soldiers needing complex healthcare. That same year Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker chartered a task force to help improve trust. He believed trust was the foundation of Army Medicine.

The Army has more than doubled its number of military and civilian behavioral health workers in the past five years. It’s an important step. But it may not be enough. A report out today examines how the Army evaluates soldiers for mental health issues; it finds the system is riddled with problems.

The Army says it won’t release the investigation into how Madigan Army Medical Center handled some soldiers' diagnoses for post-traumatic stress disorder. The denial comes one week after the Secretary of the Army was at Joint base Lewis McChord to announce the completion of an Army-wide review on the same subject.

Service Members and employees at Washington’s Joint Base Lewis McChord in Lakewood plan to observe a moment of silence at 5:46 Tuesday morning. That’s the time 11 years ago that the first plane hit the World Trade Center Tower.

Since that time, thousands of Service Members injured during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan live with chronic pain. Until recently, powerful and addictive pain killing drugs were the first line of defense. But the Army is trying to change that by taking a more nuanced and holistic approach.

This week the Army announced that it will no longer use a special psychiatry unit to evaluate soldiers with PTSD at Madigan Army Medical Center in Lakewood. Thursday, Army leadership from Madigan met with reporters.