Board: Disability system must do more - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Board: Disability system must do more

A commission appointed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled recommendations Wednesdat that could completely change the way disability retirement benefits are determined — and cost the Defense Department millions of dollars in back pay to service members with low disability ratings.

The commission also called for more funding for research on traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We are very unified in our belief that the horrors inflected on our service members [through the disability evaluation system] must be addressed,” said Togo West Jr., co-chairman of the commission, at a meeting Wednesday to discuss its draft report.

But the group went beyond assessing problems with the disability system and conditions of medical facilities that have made headlines in the wake of the situation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; it also said not enough is being done for service members with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD.

The commission cited inconsistent treatment, poor training, a lack of identification techniques for brain injuries and PTSD, insufficient research efforts, declining military mental health staff, not enough compensation for loss of use of a limb, and a “cumbersome, inconsistent and confusing” evaluation process.

Among the board’s recommendations:

* The services should determine fitness for duty, while the Department of Veterans Affairs determines compensation.

* One system should be created for all services to evaluate disabilities for soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors, rather than each service having its own system.

* The undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness review all disability decisions lower than 30 percent since 2001 for consistency and compliance with regulations.

Beyond the slow processing, lost paperwork and inappropriate disability ratings they expected to find at Walter Reed, members of Gates’ Independent Review Group said one issue they discovered took them by surprise: “compassion fatigue.”

According to retired Navy Rear Adm. Kathy Martin, Walter Reed’s staff said the duty of caring for the ceaseless stream of wounded soldiers and the feeling of helplessness in the face of bureaucratic obstacles to carrying out that duty may have put the staff into a funk of its own.

“All of those pressures have been building up at Walter Reed for several years now. I think [compassion fatigue] extends throughout the entire … compound here,” Martin said.

As with other problems found at Walter Reed, she called the issue a failure of leadership. The commission asked for a study of stress on medical staff.

Maj. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, Walter Reed’s new commander, told the board much has already been done to address the issues.

“We’re going to solve this,” he said. “We will not rest until these problems are solved.”