Is Getting a TPI Pension a Success or a Failure?
Bill Crews, the National President of the RSL, is suggesting we should regard the granting of a TPI pension as a failure. HE has a point. BILL CREWS IS SAYING that the detection, treatment and rehabilitation system for veterans is inadequate. He is saying that an adequate system of early detection of medical problems, early treatment of these problems and well resourced rehabilitation would have nearly all sick veterans back in work rather than languishing on a pension. And what TPI would not chose to be in a meaningful job earning good money rather than languishing on a meager pension. Unfortunately there are large obstacles in the way of Bills utopian dream becoming reality. War caused Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the most common reason war veterans are granted TPI pensions. It is a psychological illness extremely resistant to treatment. Medical scientists point to changes in brain physiology that they cannot reverse. So resistant to cure is PTSD that even intense treatments aim
