Lawsuit says VA Doctors did not monitor medications of suicidal corpsman

Sister’s suicide triggers lawsuit against VA
By Patricia Kime
Marine Corps Times
Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 6, 2012

On Veterans Day 2010, former Navy corpsman Kelli Marie Grese, 37, swallowed an unknown quantity of the antipsychotic Seroquel — her fourth suicide attempt in eight months using the same drug.

That time, she succeeded. She never regained consciousness.

Her death is the subject of a $5 million lawsuit filed against the Veterans Affairs Department in the U.S. District Court in Newport News, Va., alleging VA physicians failed to monitor her medications and prescribed them excessively.

Her twin sister, Darla Grese, also a former Navy corpsman, filed the suit, saying physicians at Hampton VA Medical Center, Va., ignored her pleas to quit doling out prescriptions to her sister, a known addict deemed at “moderate risk for suicide.”

“I’m hoping better attention will be placed on how many pills are being written and quantities,” said Darla Grese.

She traces her twin’s mental health problems to 1996, when she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after a break-in at the sisters’ off-base housing in Naples, Italy.
read more here