Clay Hunt Act Complements the VA's Ongoing Commitment to Veterans' Mental Health
Secretary Bob McDonald
February 12, 2015
11:55 AM EST
Ed. note: This is cross-posted in The Military Times. See the original post here.
The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act complements VA’s ongoing, multi-faceted efforts to improve mental health care for our nation’s veterans, and I’m pleased that both houses of Congress came together to pass the SAV Act. I’m proud to stand with President Obama today as he signs this important legislation.
The health and well-being of the courageous men and women who have served in uniform is VA’s highest priority. And we’re working hard to provide timely access to the highest-quality recovery-oriented mental health care that anticipates and responds to veterans’ needs and supports their reintegration back into their communities.
We know that a growing number of veterans are seeking mental health care, and VA has deployed significant resources and increases in staff toward mental health services. VA provides a continuum of forward-looking outpatient, residential, and inpatient mental health services across the country.
We have many entry points for care: through our medical centers, more than 800 community-based outpatient clinics, 300 Vet Centers that provide readjustment counseling, the Veterans Crisis Line, VA staff on college and university campuses, and other outreach efforts. VA offers expanded access to mental health services with longer clinic hours, telemental health capability to deliver services, and standards that mandate rapid access to mental health services.
While we know that the suicide rate is lower for those veterans who use VA health care, losing just one veteran to suicide is one too many. So, VA will continue to develop and improve mental health and suicide prevention services so that veterans who reach out for help receive that help when and where they need it.
Last August, President Obama announced 19 executive actions to improve access to mental health services for service members, veterans, and their families – building on progress made since the President’s 2012 Executive Order and myriad steps VA has taken over the past six years to improve mental health services.
For example, following the 2012 Executive Order, VA increased its mental health staffing, expanded the capacity of the Veterans Crisis Line (1-800-273-8255 and www.VeteransCrisisLine.net), enhanced its partnerships with community mental health providers, and increased suicide prevention awareness efforts.
In addition, under the President’s 19 executive actions announced last August, we are working to improve service members’ transition from DOD to VA, both to ensure that service members receiving mental health care are connected to mental health professionals as they transition to VA and that their mental health medications follow them from DOD to VA. We are also working to improve care coordination between VA and DoD and strengthen community resources for those with mental health issues. The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act will help us to build on this critical work to provide the care and services veterans have earned.
Sgt. Clay Hunt’s death was a tragedy. Together with the President, Congress, Veterans Service Organizations, and both profit and non-profit community partners, we will continue working to make monumental, historic strides to improve mental health care for those who have borne the battle.
Bob McDonald is the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
I could bore the crap out of you with the history of when they started to address suicides, claiming they understood and were doing everything possible to stop that "one too many suicides" they keep talking about, but why bother? Why bother telling you when you already know all this? Why bother to explain to you the heartache while they make speeches? So here are few because history has in fact been repeated to death!
US army suicides in Iraq three times the usual rate
By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles
(Filed: 14/10/2003)
Suicides among American servicemen in Iraq are running at up to three times the usual rate, the army has revealed.
Since the start of the war 11 have been confirmed and a dozen more deaths are being investigated as suspected suicides. If all are confirmed it would mean an annualised rate of 34 per 100,000 servicemen.
Most have happened after May 1 when "major combat operations" were declared over. Since then troops have had to cope with increasing paramilitary attacks with less opportunity to defend themselves.
The usual army suicide rate is 10 to 13 per 100,000, mirroring the figure for the same age group in the general population.
Officials say the unsettled situation in Iraq, combined with long deployments away from home and spartan barrack conditions, can make any symptoms of depression worse.
Accessibility of weapons in a war zone can also quickly turn a passing thought into action. "It just takes a second to put it to your head and pull the trigger," said Lt Col Elspeth Ritchie, a psychiatrist at the army's Uniformed Services University.
The army said it would send doctors to Iraq to try to reduce the problems and improve the identification of soldiers at risk. It has sent 478 home with mental health issues.
One of the latest victims was buried yesterday in the village of East Berlin, Pennsylvania. Corey Small, 20, killed himself after calling home, in front of other troops waiting to use the telephone.
There are no official figures for the number of GI suicides in Vietnam. But when the US pulled out in 1975 it had lost 60,000 troops and according to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American equivalent of the British Legion, 180,000 Vietnam veterans have since committed suicide.
Truth too tough to tell
An 8-year-old knows his daddy died in Iraq. He doesn't yet know how.
Daily Record/Sunday News
By MICHELE CANTY
UPDATED: 12/11/2008
EAST BERLIN -- Sarah Klunk has not told her son about his father's suicide in Baghdad.
It's not that Jayden, 8, hasn't been asking questions about how Pfc. Corey Small died five years ago.
It's just that his mother doesn't know what to say, or how to say it.
"What if I tell him, and he's angry with me for not telling him sooner? What if he thinks I lied to him?" Klunk said.
Small's death on July 2 or 3, 2003, has been the subject of several news stories and reports. Klunk has kept all the news articles but hasn't let Jayden see them.
Just like Jayden won't see this story, she said, until he's been told about how his dad died. Klunk agreed to let him be interviewed for the first time so he could talk about his dad.
Jayden was only 3 years old when his father died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Iraq.
Family members said pressures serving in a war zone and pressures at home, including problems with his marriage and family, had mounted for Small.
At Small's funeral, Jayden asked his mother, "When's Daddy coming?"
Klunk tried to explain to the toddler again that his father was dead, but Jayden couldn't understand.
On the five-year anniversary of Small's death, his son is left with a mystery. He knows his father is gone and not coming back, but he doesn't know how or why the 20-year-old died.
Not much had changed by 2006.
Iraq war veteran's suicide a cry for helping others, friend says
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - Columbus,GA,USA
Jan 31, 2006
An Iraq war veteran's suicide earlier this month was a cry for helping others with post-traumatic stress disorder, his close friend says.
Douglas A. Barber, a 35-year-old truck driver, shot and killed himself on Jan. 16 with a shotgun as Lee County sheriff's deputies and two friends on the phone tried to talk him out of it.
Barber, who had an honorable discharge from the Army, had served with the Ohio National Guard's 1485th Transportation Company. He spent part of 2003 in Iraq, returning home ahead of his unit, Army officials said, and later moved from Ohio to Alabama. He had been approved for service-connected disability for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said Thursday.
Barber's best friend, Michael Teppig, told the Opelika-Auburn News in a story Thursday that Barber had problems dating back to childhood. But after he went to Iraq, his problems multiplied.
Teppig said he tried numerous times to get him some help, taking him to the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee or picking up Barber and his truck at a destination because he was unable to finish the job.
Damon Stevenson, a spokesman for the Tuskegee veterans hospital, said the hospital was sad to hear of Barber's death.
"I had spoken to him on one occasion," Stevenson said Thursday. "We talked about some of his issues."
Because of federal privacy laws, however, Stevenson could not release any details of Barber's medical care.
Iraq only exacerbated Barber's problems "and he was paying the price," Teppig told the Opelika-Auburn News.
"He knew that what all he had in his head weren't going to go away," Teppig said. "He just wanted people to know what he was dealing with and didn't want anyone else to go through the same thing."
He had waged a private and public battle to get the care he needed.
Barber frequented Internet forums to talk about PTSD and the problems vets face after war, Teppig said.
Teppig said he had seen Barber medicated to the point his emotions were all over the charts.
Before Barber died, Teppig spent a day with him calling area television stations trying to get somebody to tell his story, but Teppig said no one seemed interested.
Another friend, Bob Page, was on one phone line with Barber from California and Teppig was on the other when the shotgun fired.
Bill would provide more funds for PTSD counseling and benefits
Rick Maze
Army times
Apr 05, 2006
Senate Democrats unveiled a bill Tuesday aimed at providing counseling and benefits for combat veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The bill, S 2500, the Healing the Invisible Wounds Act of 2006, aims to prevent the Bush administration from cutting disability benefits for veterans with combat stress and to improve counseling and readjustment services for National Guard and reserve members, sponsors said Sens. Daniel K. Akaka, Hawaii; John Kerry, Mass.; Frank Lautenberg, N.J.; and Hillary Rodham Clinton, N.Y. are sponsoring the legislation.
“Many of the men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from some of the most severe physical injuries. However, even more of these brave service members have invisible wounds — difficulties with adjusting to not being on the battlefield or dealing with long-lasting visions and experiences that they encountered,” said Akaka, ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
The bill “is intended to ensure that these men and women receive the readjustment counseling and mental health services necessary to transition into what we hope to be a full and productive life after combat,” added Akaka, a World War II veteran.
Kerry, the former presidential candidate and a Vietnam veteran, said, “We owe our troops more than a polite thanks and best wishes. We need to stand by our troops during and after their service. The wounds of war are not always visible, and this is not an area we can continue to shortchange our veterans.”
The bill includes $180 million extra for readjustment counseling and mental health services at Vet Centers, and a promise of one-on-one counseling for returning veterans in addition to group counseling.
Akaka said it’s important to ensure that that counseling and other help is available as soon as combat veterans return because “the transition period for these soldiers is extremely critical, so critical that it can, in some cases, mean the difference between short-term readjustment issues and severely chronic psychological conditions.”
Guard and reserve members can demobilize so rapidly after returning from deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan that “they sometimes do not receive or are overwhelmed by the benefits information they need,” Akaka said. That is why the bill requires counseling to be available within 14 days of returning from combat, and that service members be kept on active duty to receive counseling, he said.
So please be sure to thank the press next time you read one more glowing article about this bill, or any other ones that come out since none of them have had to explain why suicides went up and just like with Douglas Barber, no one was interested. Maybe you could explain to Cory Small's son what has been done to keep other kids from growing up without their Dads after all these years.
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