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PTSD RESEARCH CENTER TO BE SET UP IN ALBANY,
GEORGIA -- Phoebe Putney Hospital plans to
treat
patients outside a military hospital setting.
Phoebe Putney Hospital
For more on the PTSD, use the VA Watchdog
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http://www.walb.com/Global/
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Story below:
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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder research center
to be set up in Albany
Dougherty County -- The Defense Appropriations Bill allocates seven
million dollars for improvements at Albany's Marine Base. Part of that
money will go toward a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder center at Phoebe
Putney Hospital.
Hospital officials are already seeing South Georgia military men and
women in need of their help. Experts say up to 35 percent of the
military men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could suffer
from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
And South Georgia veterans are victims of it. Phoebe CEO Joel Wernick
said "we have also noticed in our V.A. Clinic here that there has been
more and more demand for mental health counseling. So this is another
thing that is telling us there is a need there."
The horrors of a war with no front lines and an often unseen enemy, has
given many citizen soldiers returning home disorders, often long after
they have left the military. Phoebe Vice President for Administration
Lynda Hammond said "we do see a lot of it coming after the fact, they
may have been home three months, six months, a year sometimes. And it
can be shortlived, but it can go on for a long time."
Because of their central location to many military bases, Phoebe has
worked for 15 months to host a Technical Regional Center to study and
treat PTSD. Phoebe's plan is to treat patients outside a military
hospital setting. Wernick said "to be part of the research of it, so we
can make a community setting real convenient for people in this region
to come to, as opposed to potentially having to go onto a military
base."
The Appropriations bill allocated two million dollars to Phoebe to
establish the PTSD Center. Still very much in the planning stage, Phoebe
officials don't know exactly where the center will be housed, but they
say they know they have to find the best treatment for America's troops.
Hmmond said "so that we can get advice from the best experts in the
world, and partner with others to make sure we are doing the best that
we can."
The M.C.L.B. Base in Albany was allocated five million dollars in the
Appropriations bill, to set up advanced technology, information, and
data centers to better control the Marine Corps equipment, which is
monitored and tracked worldwide from Albany's base.
Congressman Sanford Bishop is a member of the House Appropriation
Subcommittee on Defense, which allocates the 459 billion dollars in
Defense Funds.
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Larry Scott --
