Showing posts with label Veterans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Veterans. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2014
Hearing on Veteran's Administration and Mental Health Care
Here is the link to C-Span and the hearing http://www.c-span.org/video/?320367-1/hearing-mental-health-care-access-veterans
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Federal court reverses order to overhaul VA treatment system
SAN FRANCISCO — In a major setback for suffering combat veterans, a federal appeals court on Monday found that Congress, not the courts, is responsible for fixing the VA’s troubled mental health care system, overturning a previous court that found the program riddled with “unchecked incompetence.”
In a 10-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit that sought to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to overhaul the treatment program and reversed an earlier ruling that would have forced the government to speed up treatment requests and benefit claims.
Read the entire story here.
In a 10-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a lawsuit that sought to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to overhaul the treatment program and reversed an earlier ruling that would have forced the government to speed up treatment requests and benefit claims.
Read the entire story here.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
A final request from Iraq vet who took own life
By Chris Bieri
Grand Forks, N.D.,--Sean Alexander Dacus, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote out a final request Tuesday morning before fatally shooting himself in the chest outside the emergency room at Altru Health System.
According to police, the 31-year-old Grand Forks resident walked into the Altru Clinic just before 11:30 a.m. and borrowed a marker at the coffee shop.
He wrote on his arm "Do not resuscitate" and below that, "Donate organs please," a police source said. To the right of those lines, he wrote "A-," which police believe was his blood type.
Read the entire story here.
Grand Forks, N.D.,--Sean Alexander Dacus, a veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote out a final request Tuesday morning before fatally shooting himself in the chest outside the emergency room at Altru Health System.
According to police, the 31-year-old Grand Forks resident walked into the Altru Clinic just before 11:30 a.m. and borrowed a marker at the coffee shop.
He wrote on his arm "Do not resuscitate" and below that, "Donate organs please," a police source said. To the right of those lines, he wrote "A-," which police believe was his blood type.
Read the entire story here.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
A Veteran Dies By Suicide Every 80 Minutes, Center For A New American Security Study Reveals
By Eleanor Goldberg The Huffington Post November 2, 2011
A veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes, according to a study published Monday.
Military suicides have increased since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a Center for a New American Security Suicide report. In the fiscal year 2009 alone, 1,868 veterans of these wars have made suicide attempts, according to armytimes.com.
These staggering figures underscore the need for the VA to develop more mental-health programs and an accurate system for recording the number of veterans and service members who take their lives.
"America is losing its battle against suicide by veterans and service members," authors Dr. Margaret C. Harrell and Nancy Berglass concluded. "And as more troops return from deployment, the risk will only grow."
Faced with the stigma of post-traumatic stress disorder, unemployment rates tipping 12 percent and a loss of the military camaraderie, many veterans report feeling purposeless upon returning home.
Marine Corps veteran Jason Christiansen, 35, of St. Paul, Minn. is one such veteran that nearly killed himself after watching his life unravel upon completing his service. He lost his job as an auto dealer in 2008, avoided debt collectors and fell into a serious depression, Minnesota.publicradio.org reports.
"At one point, I was sitting there with a gun in my mouth," Christiansen told the news outlet.
A friend pushed Christiansen to seek help at a VA program, a key player in the rescuing of veterans in despair.
The Veterans Crisis Line, launched in 2007, has fielded more than 400,000 calls and has saved more than 14,000 lives, according to the Veterans Affairs mental health website.
The epidemic is raging among those who are currently serving too. From 2005 to 2010, approximately one service member committed suicide every 36 hours, the CNAS study revealed.
While the VA mental-health programs have proven to be effective, the authors of the report offered concrete suggestions on how to prevent even more military members and veterans from taking their lives.
Establishing an Army unit cohesion period
When soldiers are deployed to a new mission, the unit quickly disbands, leaving service members reeling from the loss of the leaders and the service members that they had learned to trust and rely on. "This lack of unit stability following a deployment has unfortunate implications for individuals struggling with reintegration," Harrell and Berglass noted. The authors suggested that the Army follow the Marines protocol of keeping a unit together for 90 days following deployment.
When soldiers are deployed to a new mission, the unit quickly disbands, leaving service members reeling from the loss of the leaders and the service members that they had learned to trust and rely on. "This lack of unit stability following a deployment has unfortunate implications for individuals struggling with reintegration," Harrell and Berglass noted. The authors suggested that the Army follow the Marines protocol of keeping a unit together for 90 days following deployment.
Discussing personally-owned weapons with service members
Though 48 percent of military suicides in 2010 occurred at the hands of privately-owned weapons, the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act bars military leaders from broaching the topic with military members, even if they appear to be severely depressed. The authors want Congress to rescind the act, so that military leaders can, at the very least, suggest that service members purchase gunlocks or store their weapons outside of the home if they suspect that they may be at risk for committing suicide.
Though 48 percent of military suicides in 2010 occurred at the hands of privately-owned weapons, the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act bars military leaders from broaching the topic with military members, even if they appear to be severely depressed. The authors want Congress to rescind the act, so that military leaders can, at the very least, suggest that service members purchase gunlocks or store their weapons outside of the home if they suspect that they may be at risk for committing suicide.
Improving the analysis of veteran suicide data
The VA estimates that about 18 veterans commit suicide every day, but this statistic is based on limited data. Only 16 states submit the cause of death among veterans and the VA relies on 3-year-old data for its reports. Improved information collection could help determine if veterans are committing suicide soon after leaving the military and if there's a higher risk among post-9/11 veterans compared with earlier generations, the study noted.
The VA estimates that about 18 veterans commit suicide every day, but this statistic is based on limited data. Only 16 states submit the cause of death among veterans and the VA relies on 3-year-old data for its reports. Improved information collection could help determine if veterans are committing suicide soon after leaving the military and if there's a higher risk among post-9/11 veterans compared with earlier generations, the study noted.
"The DOD does not currently take sufficient responsibility for veteran suicide," the authors said. "Given the potential implications of veteran suicide for the all volunteer force, the DOD should seek to understand which veterans, and how many veterans, are dying by suicide."
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