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Monday, August 10, 2009

Impact of VCS-VUFT Lawsuit against the VA

This was part of the reason I resigned from the NAMI Veterans Council. They gave Dr. Katz an award for what he was forced to do when it came to the suicides of our veterans.

This is from an online report about the NAMI Convention
Veterans Affairs Mental Health Program

by
Cole Buxbaum
There has been an increase in homelessness, criminalization, and suicide among veterans. 14% of service members are now suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) During the last few years 1.6 million veterans have had a psychiatric diagnosis. The Veterans Affairs Department has called for post-deployment periodic evaluations for all combat veterans.

Since 2006 the VA has hired over 4,000 new mental health practitioners to deal with the growing demands, and more new hires are planned. In late 2008, the VA issued a directive to all VA health care facilities to significantly restructure their mental health programs, establishing scores of new approaches to help veterans transition, reintegrate and recover.

The key speaker at this workshop was Ira Katz, M.D., director, Office of VA Mental Health, Washington, D. C.



This is from the convention
NAMI VETERANS COUNCIL DEDICATION TO VETERANS MENATL HEALTH CARE AWARD

Ira Katz, MD

Dr, Ira Katz left a comfortable position at the University of Pennsylvania and the VA Medical Center to join the Department of Veterans Affairs. Within two years of his arrival, members of Congress and the press were calling for his resignation or termination over the issues of rising suicides among veterans-especially veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In spite of blistering criticism, Dr. Katz worked tirelessly behind the scenes to launch the VA's first ever suicide prevention initiative, including a nationwide crisis call line in conjunction with SAMHSA that has intervened in thousands of potential suicides by veterans. While managing this delicate task and fending off critics, Dr. Katz spearheaded VA-wide approval of a dramatic reform of its mental health programs to embrace recovery principles. All veterans receiving mental health care in the VA are better served today because of the work of Dr. Ira Katz. We are proud to honor him for his dedication to improving the mental health and the mental health care of veterans.

"Proud" is what they were but the fact is, none of what happened with the VA and steps taking would have happened without these law suits and Congress getting invovled. If the NAMI Veteran's Council is so uninformed on what the facts were behind all of this they awarded one of the people responsible for the harm done, then we have to ask what else they have gotten wrong. What excuse can they have for not knowing? What can they say to the families of our veterans when they were so hopeless they committed suicide at the same time Katz was denying it was happening on national TV? These are not average citizens unable to know what's going on. They are supposed to be experts on what they are talking about. So how is it they didn't know what was behind all of this? How is it that they gave an award to Katz after all of this?

I cannot tell you how truly disgusted I am with this. I had such high hopes for the Veterans Council believing they were putting veterans first and knew as much about what was going on as I did. After all, they are the "experts" and were supposed to know. Yet given the fact I would receive emails with links to reports days after I had read them and posted them, as if it was big news and they never seemed to manage to send out links to the really big stories, that should have given me a clue they didn't really know much of what they should have know and been informing others on.

Again, I still believe in NAMI but after this award to Katz, I don't believe the Veteran's Council is about doing what is best for the veterans. If they were really interested in the truth then they would have given an award to Veterans for Common Sense or Veterans United for truth instead because their efforts were behind all of it.


Impact of VCS-VUFT Lawsuit
Two years ago Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth made history with our lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs.
We are tired of the endless delays caused by VA, including the fact that VA medical centers turned away suicidal veterans seeking mental healthcare - a dire moral outrage during a time our Nation fights two wars.While some at VA called our suit a nuisance, and VA tried in vain to have the suit dismissed, our lawsuit provided several victories for veterans.
The court ruled VA was harming our veterans with unreasonable delays in healthcare and benefits.

The court forced VA to release internal documents showing VA concealed a terrible and tragic suicide epidemic and even sought to block access to healthcare and disability benefits for veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.Your contributions makes a difference!

Please set up a monthly gift to VCS today so we can keep the heat on VA to improve access to timely services for our veterans.


Be a Part of History - Watch Hearing and Support VCS
This Wednesday at 9:30 AM, our attorneys in our case, Gordon Erspamer and Morrison & Foerster and Sid Wolinsky at Disability Rights Advocates, appear before the Ninth District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. C-SPAN will carry the case live.

Read our appeal brief here. How important is this lawsuit? Two widely respected veterans organizations, the Vietnam Veterans of America and Swords to Plowshares, wrote the Appeals Court and agreed that VCS and VUFT were right and that the current crisis demands court intervention to overhaul and reform VA.

How historic is this case?

Last week, Gordon Erspamer was presented with the prestigious pro bono attorney of the year award by the American Bar Association.

You can view a video about Gordon here.

After VCS and VUFT filed our lawsuit, VA set up a toll-free suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-TALK. So far, 150,000 distraught veterans have called, and VA performed more than 3,200 rescues, including a soldier on active duty in Iraq.

Your support keeps the needs of veterans front and center in the news.

Please donate to VCS today so we can improve how VA takes care of our veterans. Sincerely,

Paul Sullivan

Executive Director

Veterans for Common Sense

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