Congress: Veterans Committing Suicide "National Embarrassment"

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
April 26, 2015

We should file this under Veterans suicide awareness, too much too little, too late for far too many. If we continue to just slam the VA then we will never be truly aware of the origins. Leaving our veterans lacking care is a "national embarrassment" because of how long Congress has been trying to prevent them, or so they said they would.

Why haven't members of Congress managed to look at what the DOD did in the first place to these veterans? After all, their PTSD issues started in the military.

The military has managed to tell servicemembers PTSD is their fault and then they seemed shocked suicides went up. The VA has had issues with getting veterans the proper care to heal PTSD, or at least that is who Congress wants blamed. So why is everyone blaming everyone else leaving little room for real change?

KD Investigation: Congressman Wants Answers In Vet Suicides
KDKA News
Andy Sheehan
April 24, 2015

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — After fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq — returning U.S. veterans are committing suicide in astounding numbers. Just last month, veteran Michelle Langhorst of Plum shot herself in the parking lot of the VA in O’Hara and Iraq war veteran David Cranmer hung himself on a job site, where he was working in the North Hills.

An average of 22 veterans commit suicide in this country every day — and following our report — one congressman is demanding answers on whether we’re doing enough to help them. “This is a national tragedy,” said Rep. Tim Murphy. “This is a national embarrassment.”

Tim Murphy wants to know if veterans with PTSD — post-traumatic stress disorder — are getting the care they need and deserve.

David Cranmer’s father — former Allegheny County Commissioner Bob Cranmer — says they are not. “This casualty rate is unacceptable for people who aren’t actually at war,” said Cranmer.

“These young people have come home, They’re trying to reintegrate back into society and they’re killing themselves.”

Cranmer says his son was diagnosed with PTSD after just one therapy session and his doctor prescribed the psychotropic drug Zoloft — a drug with an FDA warning that it can lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. Cranmer says his son received no other treatment and hung himself a month later.
read more here

Ok, so why didn't Murphy mention the other thing RAND Corp reported on in 2009?

RAND researchers extrapolated from a survey they conducted of 1,965 vets to conclude that nearly 300,000 service members and vets of Iraq and Afghanistan were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD — or major depression. Filner told the pair of researchers, who summarized their findings for his committee, that their work probably understated the problem.

Or the other RAND Corp study on the much touted "resiliency" training the DOD had been doing

Most programs have been implemented before evidence of their effectiveness has been established.

Topped off with the fact that this did not fit with military culture in the first place among many other issues.

"The military has nearly 900 suicide prevention programs across 400 military installations worldwide, but in a report released Tuesday, the task force describes the Defense Department's approach as a safety net riddled with holes."

Task force calls military suicide prevention efforts inadequate, By BARBARA BARRETT McClatchy Newspapers

Or the other thing RAND Corp reported on about the other thing happening to veterans?

A Rand Corp. survey of 522 psychiatrists, psychologists and licensed clinical social workers found that just 13 percent met the study's criteria for "cultural competency," meaning they understood military mores, language and background, and delivered appropriate care for illnesses unique to the military, such as combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

The results are important, Rand researcher Terri Tanielian said, because insensitivity and unfamiliarity with proven treatments may keep troops and veterans from getting quality psychiatric care.

"These findings suggest that when service members, veterans or family members seek care from providers not affiliated with the Defense Department or Veterans Affairs, they may encounter providers who are not as well prepared to deliver culturally sensitive care," Tanielian and the other authors wrote.
Army Times Rand: Civilian mental health providers don't 'get' the military

But then again, why even mention the fact that in 2012 the DOD had not spent all the money Congress had allocated for suicide prevention.

Congressman Jim McDermott (WA-7) and Congressman Leonard Boswell (IA-3) urged leaders of the U.S. House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee this week, to work with them in getting the Pentagon to use all of its unspent suicide prevention funds to reach more service members as soon as possible, and to go even further with higher funding next year.

In July, the McDermott-Boswell amendment that would increase critical funding for suicide prevention for active duty military by $10 million passed with strong support in the House Defense Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2013.
Shaun Knittel, Online News Editor, Out Serve Magazine, 20 September 2012

But naturally the biggest whopper of all is that members of Congress keep asking the same questions over and over again,

House Committee Reviews Effectiveness of VA’s Outreach Efforts on Suicide Prevention
Committee Reviews Effectiveness of VA’s Outreach Efforts on Suicide Prevention FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2010

Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, July 14, 2010, Chairman Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) conducted a hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to examine the progress of suicide prevention outreach efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The Subcommittee evaluated the current state of VA’s ability to educate the public of VA services concerning suicide prevention and discussed the effectiveness of the media campaign to encourage veterans to seek help at the VA.

Public Law 110-110, The Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, required VA to develop a pilot program encouraging veterans battling suicide to seek help at the VA. As a result, VA advertised its suicide hotline using Washington, D.C. metro area buses and metro subway trains, in addition to creating a Public Service Announcement for network television use.

“As you know, many of our newest generation of veterans, as well as those who served previously, bear wounds that cannot be seen and are hard to diagnose,” said Chairman Mitchell. “Proactively bringing the VA to them, as opposed to waiting for veterans to find the VA, is a critical part of delivering the care they have earned in exchange for their brave service. No veteran should feel they are alone,” said Chairman Mitchell.

The two witnesses of the hearing’s first panel were Warrant Officer Melvin Cintron, USA (Ret.) who has served multiple tours in Iraq, and also Ms. Linda Bean, who tragically lost her son to suicide after he returned from his second tour in Iraq. Mr. Cintron observed that while the VA’s suicide hotline is a valuable and much needed service, there should be other equally accessible resources offered by the VA that service intermediate levels of urgency prior to the final resort of calling the suicide hotline. Ms. Bean stated that to improve suicide prevention and outreach, the VA must publicize civilian mental health counseling alternatives that might better suit some veterans who are either not located near a VA facility, or who may otherwise choose not to approach the VA for help.

Back to the report from above, it is vital to be aware of the fact that most of these veterans committing suicide are over the age of 50,,

"Veterans over the age of 50 who had entered the VA healthcare system made up about 78 percent of the total number of veterans who committed suicide"

but Congress doesn't want us to remember that fact. After all, that would then translate into how long they have had to take care of other veterans and failed. And then when the subject is the younger generations, their numbers show that what Congress has let the DOD get away with has caused most of their problems.

The rate of veterans committing suicide is double the civilian population with the majority of them being over 50. Then there is the other figure of young veterans committing suicide at triple the rate of their civilian peers.

When you have results like this, it seems as if all these years have been a waste of time, yet members of Congress fail to admit it is their job to write the rules for the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, fund them to meet the need and when they don't, hold them accountable.

No one seems to understand that we are supposed to hold members of Congress accountable for not doing their jobs in the first place. We let all of them get away with repeating the same worn out pretentious grandstanding as if they didn't have anything to do with this tragic outcome.