Soldiers' emotional battle scars put doctors in dilemma

What happened first to "do no harm" when it came to the doctors not telling the commander of the National Guard? Times have not changed enough, that's for sure.

It seems like centuries ago when I had to fight a mental health worker to have my husband's life saved. I was working in a mental health hospital at the time. Not one of my favorite jobs, but I worked for 6 psychiatrists. My husband wanted to die and I was terrified he was planning on it. Long story short, he got the help he needed but a mental health worker almost got in the way. This "woman" (you know I'm thinking of another word) told me that I violated my husband's civil rights by "acting like God" and she was so full of herself. That is until I told her where I worked and who I worked for. She was gone soon after. In between this encounter and my husband getting help, it had to be done away from the mental health hospital, with the police department and a long distance phone call to a boss away on vacation. The police did the right thing and so did my boss. My husband is still alive and I am grateful for the help he was given that day while still infuriated with the clueless "woman" supposedly working to help people.

Here we have a young National Guardsman, needing help, going for help, getting help and a family standing behind him. Everything that needed to be done was being done. That is until the doctors decided not to inform the National Guards. I'm no lawyer but it seems that since this "patient" was a danger to himself, they had more obligation to inform the National Guards than to keep that information from them. Consider this part. They also endangered the lives of the other Washington National Guardsmen had Tim Juneman been deployed.

It seems all too often that families do the right thing for their veterans but too many are not and we need to be asking why not. Tim Juneman hung himself after seeking help because he just wasn't helped enough. There needs to be clear rules on this because I'm sure the doctors cared but now a young National Guardsman is dead and a family left behind when everyone did it all right.

COURTESY OF THE JUNEMAN FAMILY

Tim Juneman and his mother, Jacqueline Hergert, are pictured in 2006. The Army National Guard specialist killed himself in 2008.

Soldiers' emotional battle scars put doctors in dilemma
The suicide of an Iraq war veteran in Eastern Washington has highlighted an ethical dilemma confronting the Department of Veterans Affairs and the military: how far to go in protecting patient confidentiality as troubled veterans are called back to front-line duty.

By Hal Bernton

Seattle Times staff reporter


Tim Juneman went to a Department of Veterans Affairs psychiatrist in January 2008 to talk about his recurrent thoughts of suicide.

The 25-year-old Washington State University student was an Iraq war veteran who had survived a year of tough fighting that left him with a twin diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury.

His biggest worry, according to notes taken by the VA psychiatrist, was a looming call back to active duty by the Washington National Guard. The order would have sent the specialist back to Iraq.

A VA psychiatrist hospitalized Juneman but never notified the National Guard unit of his patient's distress over redeployment. Juneman was released that month, then missed follow-up appointments.

In early March 2008, Juneman hanged himself in his Pullman apartment. His body was discovered some 20 days later, The Spokesman-Review newspaper reported.

His death underscores an unsettling new reality for VA health-care providers. Unlike in decades past, they now often treat veterans headed back to war. And this can pose an ethical challenge for VA doctors if they think PTSD, traumatic brain injury or other unhealed wounds could put a patient or others at greater risk on the front line.

Jacqueline Hergert, Juneman's mother, says the VA should have contacted the National Guard about her son's plight.

"In Tim's case," Hergert said, "he had already been placed under suicide watch, and somebody should have told his unit. Perhaps doing that would have saved my son. What he really needed was for the VA to be an advocate for him."

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Soldiers emotional battle scars put doctors in dilemma