VA touts progress on suicides; data tell another story
USA TODAY
Dennis Wagner
August 25, 2014
But other evidence hints at the magnitude of the crisis. As of June 2012, the national VA Suicide Prevention Line was getting roughly 17,000 calls per month — up more than 17 percent from 2009. Four out of five were veterans seeking help, nearly one-third of them contemplating suicide.
Seven years ago, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs rejected allegations by media outlets and watchdog organizations that America faced a suicide epidemic among former military personnel.
The VA claimed just 790 veterans under department care had taken their own lives that year. Yet, by reviewing available public records since 2005, CBS News uncovered 6,256 suicides.
As VA officials publicly disputed the network's data, Dr. Ira Katz, the top mental-health officer, was sending internal e-mails titled "Not for the CBS Interview Request."
"Shh!" Katz wrote in one message. "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities."
When the e-mails were disclosed, confirming the CBS findings, some members of Congress called for Katz's resignation or termination.
Today, Katz remains at VA headquarters as acting director of mental health operations. In a phone interview with The Arizona Republic, he and Caitlin Thompson, deputy director for suicide prevention, said veterans' mental-health care is a national success story that merits a B+ if graded on a curve against other programs. Katz said recent data indicate the suicide rate is increasing among men in the general U.S. population but is stable among VA patients. "We're doing relatively well by fighting this trend," he added. read more here
I made a promise about not writing anything that was not positive on military suicides so I am reserving what I want to say now with this latest report. So here is just a reminder.
Justice Department lawyer Richard Lepley argued Monday that the VA has responded to the unprecedented number of claims, which officials say is being driven by aging Vietnam veterans and other warriors of the Cold War era, by launching a massive new hiring process.
Lepley told the judge that the VA has added more than 3,700 new "mental health physicians" to a mental health professional staff of 17,000 that treats increasing cases if post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological problems in the last year.
"We are staffing up," Lepley said. "We can't do it overnight."
Government lawyers say the VA has been devoting more resources to mental health and making suicide prevention a top priority. They also argue that the courts don't have the authority to tell the department how it should operate.
Earlier in the morning, veterans lawyer Gordon Erspamer told the judge that the VA isn't doing enough, calling for the judge to order a massive overhaul of how the VA processes claims and perhaps hire a "special master" to preside over the agency.
Erspamer cited a RAND Corp. report released last week estimating that 300,000 U.S. troops—about 20 percent of those deployed—are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Erspamer showed the judge two e-mails written last year among high-ranking officials that said an average of 18 military veterans kill themselves each day—and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide. Another e-mail said 1,000 veterans under VA care attempt suicide each month.
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
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.
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!
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.
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,
I still believe in NAMI but I no longer believe in the NAMI Veterans Council. The decision to award Dr. Ira Katz for suicide prevention is akin to awarding a vampire for testing blood. Katz, as reported here countless times, was refusing to admit there was a problem with veterans committing suicide. Everything he did, what they are awarding him for, he was forced to do. The Veterans Council is giving him an award for what it took an act of Congress to do!
This is one of the stories about a soldier that committed suicide.
The Life and Lonely Death of Noah Pierce text and photos by Ashley Gilbertson, from the Virginia Quarterly Review
Noah Pierce’s headstone gives his date of death as July 26, 2007, though his family feels certain he died the night before, when, at age 23, he took a handgun and shot himself in the head. No one is sure what pushed him to it. He said in his suicide note it was impotence—one possible side effect of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It was “the snowflake that toppled the iceberg,” he wrote. But it could have been the memory of the Iraqi child he crushed under his Bradley. It could have been the unarmed man he shot point-blank in the forehead during a house-to-house raid, or the friend he tried madly to gather into a plastic bag after he had been blown to bits by a roadside bomb, or it could have been the doctor he killed at a checkpoint.
Noah grew up in Sparta, Minnesota, a town of fewer than 1,000 on the outskirts of the Quad Cities—Mountain Iron, Virginia, Eveleth, and Gilbert—on the Mesabi Iron Range. Discovered on the heels of the Civil War, the range’s ore deposit is the largest in the United States. Around the clock, deep metallic groans come out of the ground and freight trains barrel through, horns screeching. Locals are proud of their hardworking, hard-drinking heritage. There are more than 20 bars on Eveleth’s half-mile-long main street. On a typical night last May, loudspeakers affixed to lampposts blared John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and Harleys thundered through town. One bar closed early, when a drunk got thrown through the front window.
Noah was a quiet, sensitive kid. He kept a tight circle of friends and passed time with them building tree forts and playing army in the woods. Noah’s biological father separated from Noah’s mother shortly after she became pregnant, but Tom Softich, Noah’s stepfather, treated the thin-skinned boy as his own. When Noah turned 6, Tom took him hunting, and by 13 Noah had his own high-powered rifle. For practice, they went rabbit shooting together at a small clearing a mile from their house. It became such a regular place to find Noah that his family and friends began referring to the clearing simply as “the spot.”
When Noah went missing in July 2007, after a harrowing year adjusting to home following two tours in Iraq, police ordered a countywide search. His friend Ryan Nelson thought he might know where to look. When he pulled up to the spot, he immediately recognized Noah’s truck. Inside, Ryan found his friend slumped over the bench seat, his head blown apart, the gun in his right hand. Half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Special Blend lay on the passenger seat, and beer cans were strewn about. On the dash lay Noah’s photo IDs; he had stabbed each photo through the face. And on the floorboard was the scrawled, rambling suicide note. It was his final attempt to explain the horrors he had seen—and committed.
In April 2008, Ira R. Katz, deputy chief patient care services officer for mental health at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, became embroiled in scandal when a memo surfaced in which he instructed members of his staff to suppress the results of an internal investigation into the number of veterans attempting suicide. Based on their surveys, along with tabulations from the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control, Katz estimated that between 550 and 650 veterans were committing suicide each month. It pains Noah’s family and friends that the Pentagon will never add him—nor the thousands like him—to the official tally of 4,000-plus war dead.
Likewise, PTSD and minor traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) are excluded from the count of 50,000 severe combat wounds—even though PTSD and MTBI often have far greater long-term health effects than bullet wounds or even lost limbs. A study by the RAND Corporation found that approximately 300,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans—one in five—suffer from depression or stress disorders and another 320,000 suffer from MTBIs that place them at a higher risk for depression and stress disorders.
Noah’s mother, Cheryl Softich, believes her son’s death could have been avoided had he received counseling. Statistically, veterans outside the VA system are four times more likely to attempt suicide than those within the system. Now Cheryl’s mission is to have a clause inserted into every standard military contract that would require veterans to visit a therapist every two weeks of the first year after a combat deployment. “Soldiers are taught to follow orders,” she says. “It needs to be mandatory. Noah was an excellent soldier, and if it was mandatory, he would have gone faithfully to every appointment.” http://www.utne.com/print-article.aspx?id=25408
Yet this is what the Veterans Council released for the award to Katz
NAMI Veterans Council Dedication To Veterans Mental Health Care Award
Ira Katz, MD
Dr. Ira Katz left a comfortable position at the University of Pennsylvania and the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia 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 issue 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 nation wide 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 healthcare 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. NAMI Convention
I am so furious over this that yesterday I resigned from the Veterans Council. I can no longer participate or support any group so oblivious to the facts, they saw fit to award Katz for this. NAMI giving award to Dr. Katz for being forced to change?
When you read the stories about other people in NAMI and how much they are doing for the veterans, this is an appalling decision. Matt Kuntz is a member of NAMI. He has done more for the troops and the National Guard, in turn, for the veterans as well. We tend to forget that when the members of the National Guard come back they are once again citizens and fall into the veteran role. This is what Matt Kuntz did.
Thursday, April 9, 2009 Support the The Post Deployment Health Assessment Act of 2009 Matt Kuntz, the keynote speaker at our upcoming Annual Education Conference, has asked us to take a few minutes to contact our Congressional Representatives and Senators to ask them to support comprehensive mental health screenings for our returning soldiers.Two years ago, Matt, the Executive Director of NAMI Montana and one of President Obama's "18 Ordinary Americans Making an Extraordinary Difference," lost his step-brother Chris Dana to a post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) induced suicide sixteen months after he returned from Iraq.
The events around Chris’s death led Governor Brian Schweitzer and the Montana National Guard to develop the premier program in the country for caring for National Guard members suffering from PTSD. Matt says, "The foundation of this successful system is a series of five face-to-face mental health screenings that every returning service member must complete upon their return home from combat."This broad screening program overcomes the traditional barriers that have kept service members from receiving treatment for PTSD. Over forty percent of the individuals that have completed the screening asked for help in dealing with their combat stress injuries.
Senator Max Baucus introduced “The Post Deployment Health Assessment Act of 2009” to implement this common sense screening program throughout our fighting force. The Act would require face-to-face screening before deployment, upon return home, and then every six months for two years. This basic and effective program will help safeguard the mental health of our entire fighting force for approximately the same price tag as a single F-22 Fighter. The Act is supported by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the National Guard Association, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).
Please take a few minutes out of your day to contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators to ask them to support this critical legislation. Our military suicide rates are at record levels and climbing. We can’t afford to wait any longer to help our heroes get the care they deserve. You can follow this link to find your Representatives’ and Senators’ contact information: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/.
President Obama met with Matt while he was still a senator.
Senator Obama spoke to a group of veterans and military families yesterday at Riverfront Park in Billings. He spoke at length on the failures of the current administration to take care of the nation’s veterans, before taking questions from the audience on a variety of issues. You can watch his remarks about veterans, energy, and the VA systemhere.What's going on right now, the simple fact is we're not doing right by our veterans. Not here in Montana, and not anywhere in the United States, and I want you to know that one of the reasons I'm running for president of the United States is because I want to make sure that today's veterans are treated like my grandfather was, when he came home, he got the GI Bill and was able to go to college and got FHA loans to go to school and was treated with honor. As President I'm going to make sure that the VA system in Montana gets the oversight, direction, and resources it needs to do the job. [Watch the video]
Then Senator Obama laid blame where it belonged
In Billings, Obama blames GOP for veteran troubles In Billings, Obama blames GOP for veteran troubles By TOM LUTEY Billings Gazette BILLINGS - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, speaking Wednesday in Billings, faulted Republican leaders for chronically underfunding veteran services for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.“I have some significant differences with McCain and George Bush about the war in Iraq,” Obama said. “But one thing I thought we'd agree to is when the troops came home, we'd treat them with the honor and respect they deserve.”Several trends indicate veterans are not getting the health care and other benefits they need to succeed at home, Obama told a group of around 200 people during an invitation-only morning listening session in Riverfront Park.
Armed services veterans are seven times more likely to be homeless than Americans who don't serve. In Montana, roughly half the veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder go untreated for the psychological condition, Obama said.
Before speaking, the candidate met for several minutes with the family of Spec. Chris Dana, a Montana National Guard veteran suffering from PTSD who committed suicide in March 2007, several months after returning from Iraq. Dana's stepbrother, Matt Kuntz, became a vocal advocate for better treatment of PTSD after Dana's death.
Jess Bahr, a Vietnam veteran, drove more than 200 miles from Great Falls to hear Obama. Before being bused to the event with a veteran-heavy crowd, Bahr said the number of homeless U.S. veterans was inexcusable and that the needs of retired warriors across the country were being ignored by communities.“In Great Falls, they're building a $6.5 million animal shelter and we don't have a shelter for veterans. What does that tell you about priorities?” asked Bahr, a 1967 Army draftee who survived the Tet Offensive, a nine-month series of battles that resulted in more than 6,000 deaths and 24,000 injuries among American and allied troops during the Vietnam War. click post title for more
If you ever listened to the hearings on CSPAN, you would know what kind of a crisis the veterans were in. Joshua Omvig was one more of many committing suicide because the help they needed was not there. The suicide prevention Katz is being award for took and act of Congress to begin.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 Bush Signs Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Bill into Law With the stroke of a pen President George W. Bush signed the Joshua Omvig bill into law, ending a drawn-out political chapter that overcame a procedural hold in the Senate. The bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, who named the bill after one of his constituents, Joshua Omvig of Grundy Center. Omvig committed suicide in Dec. 2005 after returning from an 11-month deployment in Iraq.
“By directing the Veterans Administration (VA) to develop a comprehensive program to reduce the rate of suicide among veterans the law will help thousands of young men and women who bravely served our country,” Boswell said in a press release following Bush’s Monday signing. “The Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act not only honors Joshua’s service to his country but ensures that all veterans receive the proper mental health care they need.”
The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act (H.R. 327) is designed to help address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among veterans by requiring mental health training for Veterans Affairs staff; a suicide prevention counselor at each VA medical facility; and mental-health screening and treatment for veterans who receive VA care. It also supports outreach and education for veterans and their families, peer support counseling and research into suicide prevention. The VA had been implementing a number of these programs, but not in a timely manner, whereas the Joshua Omvig bill mandates these programs and subsequent deadlines as a means of expediting the process for returning veterans.
It took law suits from groups to do, like Veterans for Common Sense, to call attention to the pain and suffering the veterans were going through.
With all of this, awarding Katz for what he was forced to do ignores what he did not do when he had the chance. Did he answer reporters questions honestly without trying to cover up the facts? No. He had the chance right there to fight for the veterans he was supposed to be working for instead of the administration causing the problems. All it would have taken was honesty. Imagine what that would have done for the veterans! If Katz put the veterans first instead of his job, he would have been a hero and truly deserving of such an honor. His courage would have caused such and uproar in this nation that there would be no way possible for him to be fired for doing the right thing for our veterans. He decided instead to fight for the administration and the veterans paid the price.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008 Tim Bowman Mitchell takes on the stigma of vets' mental-health issues The message reads: "It takes the courage and strength of a warrior to ask for help."It goes on to list the VA's suicide prevention hotline number: 800-273-TALK (8255).Mitchell takes on the stigma of vets' mental-health issuesby E.J. Montini - Jul. 22, 2008 12:00 AM The Arizona RepublicLate last year at a congressional hearing in Washington, Rep. Harry Mitchell listened to a couple named Mike and Kim Bowman tell the story of their 23-year-old son, Tim, a soldier who had returned safely from his yearlong deployment in Iraq only to commit suicide at home."We already were hearing that suicide among veterans who were between 20 and 24 years old was 2½ times higher than non-veterans," Mitchell told me. "And I remember thinking to myself: 'We can't do this again.' "
July 20, 2008, Spokane, Washington - A distraught 26-year-old Navy veteran who had a history of mental illness hanged himself within three hours of seeking help at Spokane Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The July 7 death of Lucas Senescall was the sixth suicide this year of a veteran who had contact with the Spokane VA, a marked increase in such deaths.
Last year, there were two suicides among veterans treated at the local VA.
Last year I went to the NAMI convention and then interviewed Paul Sullivan over the law suit filed against the VA.
What caused Veterans for Common Sense to file the law suit against the VA?
Jonathan Schulze and Jeffrey Lucey, two Gulf War combat veterans with PTSD, were refused VA medical care even though they physically came to VA medical facilities with their families and told VA staff they were suicidal. Congress may legislate and perform oversight, yet the Court can force immediate action: one of our top priorities was to force VA from turning away suicidal veterans.
VCS initially filed Freedom of Information Act requests earlier in 2007 about suicides, and VA responded that they had no information. VCS also filed suit because the number of disability claims waiting for review has doubled in the past few years, and the length of time has increased from five months to more than six months.
However, VA executives paid themselves nearly $4 million in bonuses for their dismal performance. Furthermore, VA’s IG reported three times that 25 percent of veterans waited more than one month to see a doctor. VA testified under oath twice that the figure was less than 5 percent. Clearly, VA has a capacity crisis – too many veterans and not enough doctors or claims processors. Furthermore, the 23-page claim form and several healthcare enrollment forms are overly complex, especially for our veterans with PTSD or TBI. For more detailed information, please go to http://www.veteransptsdclassaction.org/.
What caused Veterans for Common Sense to join forces with Veterans United for Truth?
VUFT is another non-profit veteran advocacy group, and they are based in California.
How were the emails from Dr. Katz discovered?
After more than 8 months of delays, the Federal Court ORDERED VA to turn over the e-mails to our attorneys in our lawsuit as part of the discovery process.
What did Dr. Katz say to explain these emails?
He admitted they were true and that he wrote them. You can read his testimony at the SVAC web site where he offers evasive explanations.
What were the facts discovered as a result of these emails being found?
1. VA says they are monitoring completed and attempted suicides to see if there is a difference in suicide rates between veterans, war veterans, and non-veterans.
2. VA essentially confirmed the CBS study that found veterans are more likely to complete a suicide, and for younger veterans aged 18 – 24, they were three to four times more likely to complete a suicide..
3. VA completes “suicide incident reports” and “root cause analysis” reports for each completed suicide, yet then declares them confidential “quality assurance” and places them off limits to Congress, veterans’ families, and attorneys. It is very important for Congress and the Courts and the public to see these reports (with privacy protections of course) so that we can better understand why the veterans killed themselves, and how VA can be improved to prevent and reduce suicides.
How many suicides does the VA know about since the beginning of the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq?
There is no national “veteran completed suicide” reporting system now, yet VA is under considerable pressure to begin working to identify all of them. VCS provided a methodology to Congress to identify as many as possible by starting with the list of 1.7 million deployed and then checking all federal, state, and local death certificates.
Currently, VA looks at death certificates where the document reports the person as a veteran. This is incomplete because many families do not know if a person was a veteran or the funeral home / coroner don’t ask. DoD only reports active duty suicides and excludes Reserve and National Guard suicides because they are not on Active Duty.. Our VCS methodology would identify all completed suicides among all 1.7 million, not just the incomplete pieces of the puzzle the DoD and VA currently look at.
How many attempted suicides does the VA know about during the same period?
See above. VA knows about attempted suicides only among those veterans receiving VA care, and that is about 1,000 per month, or 12,000 per year, based on Katz’ e-mail.
How did the emails end up with Senator Akaka and his committee?
The Katz e-mails were produced at trial in April 2008, and then journalists reported them to the public. I not exactly sure, yet I believe Sen. Akaka’s staff saw them in the widely reported press accounts of our trial.
Do you know about the Freedom of Information request to the VA by CREW and VoteVets?
Yes. It is too bad that VA still plays games with FOIA. VA should be forced to turn over the information. Embarrassing information is never a reason to deny a FOIA, as VA frequently does.
How did the email from Norma Perez end up in the hands of congress?
The Perez e-mail discouraging diagnoses for PTSD among veterans was sent by Perez to several VA staff, who in turn sent it to other VA staff, who in tern sent it to a veteran advocate in Texas. That person turned it over to VoteVets and CREW. VCS did not play a role in uncovering the e-mail, yet VCS did play a role in publicizing the e-mail.
What did the entire email suggest?
I would suggest reading the e-mail, as it speaks for itself.
How did that email end up with the congress and then incorporated into the law suit filed by Veterans For Common Sense?
The Perez e-mail and news articles were forwarded from me to our attorneys with a request that they investigate it. They did investigate it by sending a letter to the Dept. of Justice, who then authenticated it and confirmed that VA Secretary James Peake’s office knew about the Perez e-mail on April 7, 2008 – a full two weeks before our trial began, yet VA failed to provide it to our attorneys under discovery. Our attorneys then asked the judge to add the Perez e-mail to the body of evidence we introduced at trial. At a hearing earlier this month, the judge agreed with our attorneys, and the judge also admitted the entire Senate hearing transcript about the Perez e-mail into evidence – a victory for veterans. Sen. Akaka would know for sure, yet I believe he and his staff learned of the Perez e-mail from the press.
What is your view of these findings regarding the treatment of our veterans by the VA after these emails were discovered?
Nearly all VA employees are well-intended and want to assist veterans. I know this because I worked at VA and still know many VA employees. However, the system is overly complex, the system is overloaded, and the system is mired in a deep financial, leadership, and capacity crisis.
Compounding the problem is the disappointing fact that the current political appointees in Washington are incompetent at best, and malicious toward veterans at worst. This combination causes very serious adverse problems for VA, veterans, and families. The solution remains the obvious. VA needs an massive overhaul immediately.
VA needs new leaders, full mandatory funding, and significantly streamlined procedures so veterans can get fast and high-quality medical care and benefits. The situation is bad now, with 325,000 new and unplanned casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars flooding into VA hospitals and clinics, plus 288,000 unanticipated disability claims from recent war veterans. If the crisis is not addressed immediately with aggressive action, the current administration will be held responsible for crashing VA on the rocks.
Although VA had systemic problems in the 1990s and early 2000s, the situation spiraled out of control when Jim Nicholson became Secretary in early 2005. Nicholson, who had no experience with VA, healthcare, or disability claims, served as Karl Rove’s and Grover Norquist’s personal partisan wrecking ball to tear apart VA, bust up the unions, and privatize it. In the end, our only recourse was to file suit because veterans were literally completing suicide, yet VA leaders appeared oblivious to this life-or-death crisis.
In my view, we can learn the lessons from the Vietnam and Gulf wars, where many veterans with psychological trauma were neglected, and improve the situation. Or, we can take the current approach by VA: pinch pennies, bury your head in the sand, and leave the disaster to the next administration. The decision to fix VA was straightforward, yet the battle to fix VA is very hard.
Paul Sullivan Executive Director Veterans for Common Sense Post Office Box 15514 Washington, DC 20003 (202) 558-4553 Paul@VeteransForCommonSense.org http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/
I want to thank Paul for his time and for all he has done for the veterans in this country. Think about the numbers of veterans his actions will make a difference for. He doesn't want more families to have to bury another son or daughter because the VA just didn't have room for them when they needed their wounds to be treated. We've all read too many stories like Jonathan's and Jeffrey's, or Tim Bowman, or Joshua Omvig, along with the hundreds of others we found in the media. Far too much suffering that did not need to happen.
Saving lives because it was the right thing to do came from other people and not Katz. By the interviews he had done, it's obvious that had he not been forced to act, he would have been happy denying the problem and "staying the course" as Bush often loved to say.
So what exactly is behind this award? Why award it to Katz of all people? Can the NAMI Veterans Council be so oblivious to the facts and what was behind what Katz was forced to do, they think he's the one to glorify? Can they be that ignorant? I doubt it. I met a lot of the people on the council and they are bright as well as deeply committed to our veterans. There are heroes all over this country doing great work for our veterans and they are on the council. So what is behind all of this? Are they sucking up to the VA? If this was the case then I'm sure they could have found someone else more worthy of this award in the VA. Whatever the reason behind this, whatever excuse for it, they have just done more damage to our veterans and slapped suffering families in the face. They have just decided that families like the ones you just read about are insignificant. If they really wanted to give an award to a hero they could have picked Matt or Paul Sullivan or any of the families with the courage to stand up and talk about their heartbreak.
I am on the NAMI Veteran's Council, or should I say, I have been. After the decision of NAMI to give an award to Dr. Katz, I am struggling finding a reason to participate at all.
When news of Dr. Katz came out during a conference call a few months ago, I was shocked. I respected the other members on the call and managed to keep my mouth shut. I did fire off an angry email, that was never responded to.
This is part of the email
I finally had some time to call in and listen. I am now thoroughly disappointed. The award the council is giving to Dr. Katz is wrong beyond belief. If NAMI wants to award someone for lying about PTSD suicides and attempted suicides then clearly NAMI does not know the facts. I'm involved with a lot of groups, several of which ended up filing law suits because of Dr. Katz and his abysmal record while the troops and veterans were killing themselves. The members that made the choice of Dr. Katz would have known what he's done if they read one tenth of the reports I do. How could you award him anything when he denied the enormous problem with the VA and suicides for the suicide prevention line he was forced to do? Do you know what this will do to NAMI's reputation? The stories have been all over the news for a couple of years and the organizations I'm involved with have massive lists of memberships they will notify of NAMI's award to Dr. Katz. Plan on a massive backlash against NAMI by these organizations because the fury this will cause.
Later in another conference call, someone said that Dr. Katz was vilified by the media. Seems he did a good enough job doing that himself. He was denying the suicides and attempted suicides were as high as they were trying to paint a picture of everything humanly possible being done to address the devastation our troops and veterans were going thru. A lawsuit filed by Veterans for Common Sense followed by another lawsuit on the delay in processing claims.
Arguments in the lawsuit, which pushes for better care for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, started April 21 in U.S. District Court. Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, say unless the U.S. institutes systemic and drastic measures to care for injured veterans, the numbers of broken families, unemployed and homeless veterans, cases of drug abuse and alcoholism, and the burdens on health care and social services systems will be incalculable. That includes the impact of poor care for Black soldiers with PTSD, they add.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs denied charges that discrimination and racism exacerbate the stress of wartime service and contributes to PTSD, in a written response to Veterans for Common Sense et al vs. Peake. When psychiatrists treat Blacks for PTSD, they are “much less likely to attribute the PTSD to combat than when they treat Whites, leading to a denial of services at the VA,” the lawsuit charges.
Veterans also say that over the last six years, the Bush administration has systematically denied veterans the health care they were promised and that they went to court as a last resort.
Suicide rates alarming
“We are here because veterans are committing suicide at an alarming rate,” Atty. Arturo Gonzalez told U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, citing government documents showing that 18 U.S. war veterans kill themselves every day. “More of these veterans are dying in the United States than in combat—that’s wrong.”
“There is only one person on Earth who can do anything to help these men and women,” he told the judge, “Your honor, these veterans need help. The VA has demonstrated that they won’t do it on their own.”
The veterans’ groups are asking the judge to order the Department of Veterans Affairs to fully implement its own mental health strategic plan, which they argue has been left to wither on the vine; to comply with an internal VA memo setting out “specific programs intended to stop the suicides;” and to shorten claim times.
In his early May closing argument, Justice Department attorney Daniel Bensing countered that “the VA is providing world-class health care across the board” and dismissed as “immaterial” the fact that 18 veterans commit suicide every day.
“We don’t dispute that suicide is a major issue among veterans,” he said, but “there is no evidence that suicidal veterans have been turned away.”
“Extensive care is being provided,” he said.
But internal VA documents made public at the trial appeared to paint a different picture.
Hiding serious problems?
In one e-mail made public during the trial, the head of the VA’s Mental Health division, Dr. Ira Katz, advised a media representative not to tell reporters that 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.
“Shh!” the e-mail begins.
“Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?” the e-mail concludes. Leading Democrats on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee have since called for Dr. Katz’s resignation.
Another set of documents showed that in the six months leading up to March 31, 2008, 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claims would be approved by the government. A third set of documents showed that veterans who appeal a VA decision to deny their disability claim have to wait an average of 1,608 days, or nearly four and a half years, for their answer.
These documents, which contained information that journalists and veterans’ groups had been trying to obtain for months, only came to light because of the discovery process of the trial, which required high-ranking government officials to give depositions under oath.
“No matter how this trial turns out, it has given us a wealth of information,” said Amy Fairweather of the nonprofit group Swords to Plowshares, which provides counseling, employment and housing to returning veterans. “We can use the information that’s been discovered to show how to do things better.”
Ms. Fairweather said she hopes Judge Samuel Conti will grant the veterans’ groups request for a Special Master to monitor the Department of Veterans Affairs’ compliance with its mental health strategic plan.
“When someone’s watching over you it’s an incentive to do your job,” she said. “Right now, there’s no accountability.”
As the trial wrapped up, Judge Conti appeared to be friendly to the arguments of the veterans groups, but the judge, an 86-year-old World War II veteran who was originally appointed to the bench by Richard Nixon, expressed a concern that he not overreach his authority.
“This court is restricted by statutes and case law,” he said, asking both sides to file legal arguments on his jurisdiction.
“Whatever I do, one side or the other is going to appeal,” he noted, expressing a desire that his decision not be overturned by a higher court.
Speaking with reporters afterwards, representatives for the veterans and the government both agreed that the losing side will likely appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court. http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_4730.shtml
Yet NAMI seems to think that it was the media's fault that Dr. Katz was attacked while our veterans were dying. How many posts are on this blog about the suicides? How many do you think it would have taken NAMI to understand that this was not some kind of political game or media witch hunt going on?
We were reading their stories! We knew what was going on at the same time Dr. Katz among others were denying it was going on.
Advocacy Groups File Lawsuit Against VA Over Disability Claims Delays
Main Category: Veterans / Ex-Servicemen
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 12 Nov 2008 - 11:00 PST
Two veterans' advocacy groups on Monday filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs alleging that its failure to process disability claims in a timely manner has resulted in economic and other problems for hundreds of thousands of military personnel, the Cox/Memphis Commercial Appeal reports. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the Vietnam Veterans for America and Veterans of Modern Warfare, which represent about 60,000 veterans.
According to the lawsuit, "The VA's failure to provide timely benefits decisions often leads to financial crises, homelessness, addiction and suicide." The suit calls on VA to provide waiting veterans with interim benefits for claims that take at least 90 days to process or more than six months to appeal.
Robert Cattanach, a Minneapolis-based attorney for the veterans, said there currently are about 600,000 service members who are awaiting the outcomes of their disability claims, which can take six months to one year to be processed. Appeals can take up to four years to be processed. Cattanach said that as more veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan return to the U.S., VA likely will see an increase of hundreds of thousands of additional disability claims. Phil Budahn, a VA spokesperson, declined to comment on the lawsuit (Deans, Cox /Memphis Commercial Appeal, 11/11).
During the Bush Administration, with two military campaigns producing more wounded everyday, the VA was in denial mode at the same time the people on the lower tiers were struggling to help the veterans, process mountains of claims and get them diagnosed properly. What the top of the food chain was doing was quite different. There were less doctors and nurses working for the VA than there were after the Gulf War. IT workers were cut back at the same time people like Sally Satel were being allowed to dismiss the suffering of our veterans with PTSD as if they were just looking for a free ride. Still wonder why nothing was done to the help these veterans during the Bush Administration? Dr. Katz, very well could have been a fall guy for the administration but he was given a chance do decide if he cared more about his job and protecting the administration or cared about the veterans more. He decided to cover up what was going on.
Subject: Dr. Katz to receive top award from National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Dr. Ira Katz, Deputy Chief PCS Officer for Mental Health, has been named recipient of NAMI’s Veterans Council Dedication to Veterans Mental Health Care Award. Dr. Katz will receive his award at NAMI’s national conference in San Francisco, July 6-9.
NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots organizations for people with mental illness and their families whose mission is to be an advocate to ensure that all persons affected by mental illness receive the services they need and deserve, in a timely fashion. In announcing the prestigious award, NAMI noted that despite criticism in the media following reports of increased suicides among veterans, Dr. Katz worked tirelessly behind the scenes to launch the VA’s first-ever suicide presentation initiative, including a nationwide crisis call line that has intervened in thousands of potential suicides by veterans. NAMI noted that Dr. Katz spearheaded VA-wide approval of 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,” NAMI said in its statement about the award.
That's the most appalling part in all of this. If Katz believed the crap the administration was putting out, then he was not paying attention enough to know better. If he didn't believe what he was saying then he was provided with enough opportunities to tell the truth. Either way, the veterans kept dying for attention and the truth to come out.
Another conversation during the conference call it was said that Dr. Katz had come a long way and deserved to be recognized for his work on suicide prevention. This stunning statement came after the law suits were filed, after congress and the senate Veterans Affairs Committees decided to figure out what was going on and do something about it. After Nicholson was finally replaced. After families of veterans that committed suicide told their stories to congress and after the needless military burials had already happened. Today, we still see the rise in suicides and attempted suicides but NAMI, well, NAMI decided that Katz deserves this award because he was forced to do something!
There is a lot of great work NAMI has been doing to address PTSD, from Peer To Peer and Family to Family, to other groups forming partnership with the VA and the DOD. All their work should be applauded but when they are wrong, they are wrong and I refuse to dismiss it.
I got into all of this because the veterans came first, not the people with the power. The veterans were and still are suffering, but the people with the power will not do what it takes, whatever it takes or how much money it will take to really take care of them. If I remain silent on this, I will be betraying the veterans I've fought so hard for since 1982. If I leave NAMI over this, it's no great loss to them because they never listen to me anyway. I am no one in their organization. In giving this award to Dr. Katz after his history it is a slap in the face to all the other groups around the country that tried so hard to bring accountability for the sake of the veterans, make the changes necessary to save their lives and provide them with a better quality of life.
I am torn up over this. If I did not believe in NAMI, know what good they are doing, I would not hesitate to stop supporting them. Thinking about what they are preparing to do makes me wonder how much they have really been paying attention to what has been happening to our veterans. It makes me sick thinking they could possibly be so unaware of any of this they reward someone responsible for it.
I think I just made up my mind. All the years and all the experience I have has meant nothing to NAMI Veterans Council in the past year so I'm done wasting my time. I'm done trying to get them to pay attention. I'm done reading emails sent with the "latest news" days after I've already posted it on the blog. This is the last straw on this overburdened back of mine. If they want to do something like this, after all the harm done, I can no longer support them.
Military Update: Treating mental combat wounds BY TOM PHILPOTT Daily Press June 16, 2008
Rep. Bob Filner, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, alleged on Wednesday that Bush administration officials were continuing to downplay the mental trauma and brain injuries suffered by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Filner, D-Calif., said an April RAND Corp. study — "Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery" — justified a 10-fold jump in the U.S. casualty count, compared with the figure of 33,000 American dead and wounded used by the Pentagon.
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.
"I personally think these are low estimates, just from my own studies," Filner said. "But if you take even the 300,000, (it's) 10 times the official casualty statistics from the Pentagon. Shouldn't this 300,000 be included?"
Lisa H. Jaycox, a senior behavioral scientist and clinical psychologist who co-directed the RAND study, embraced Filner's argument.
"Well, they are (suffering) an injury condition resulting from combat deployment, and so it's a different kind of casualty," Jaycox said, "but, yes, they are very important numbers."
The three-hour hearing also included testimony from retired Navy Rear Adm. Patrick W. Dunne, assistant secretary for policy and planning for the Veterans Benefits Administration.
At the same hearing, Michael L. Dominguez — principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness — said RAND gathered solid data from its survey but drew the wrong conclusions. The study, Dominguez said, "did not, and cannot, definitively say that there are 300,000 cases of clinically diagnosed cases" of PTSD or depression among vets who served in the two theaters.
Filner angrily interrupted him, telling Dominguez that RAND didn't say it showed 300,000 clinically diagnosed cases of PTSD or depression.
"It was an extrapolation to the possibility" of 300,000 cases, Filner said.
With more than 1.6 million U.S. service members having served in Iraq or Afghanistan, Dominguez said, a finding that 300,000 vets "have experienced some kind of mental health stress is very consistent with our data. And those people do need to be discovered (and) to get help." go here for more http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/military/dp-local_milupdatenew_0616jun16,0,6743686.story
Over 30 years ago, when people who got into this before I did, there was very little known about PTSD and it had just received that title because Vietnam Veterans fought for it. Five years later, I got into this because of my husband. By then a lot more was known. One of the things was that there were 500,000 with PTSD and this came from a study funded by the DAV. This study was published in 1978 before most of the people being quoted as "experts" today were even born. This is not a new illness. This is not a changing illness because humans are pretty much still made up of all the same parts of their original design.
At the NAMI convention in Orlando this weekend, we heard a lot about a lot of people suffering. A great deal of the people attending were consumers, otherwise known as patients and their families. They sat in the conference rooms right next to people who have working on helping them ranging from simple advocates like me all the way up to psychiatrists and psychologist. Why would people like us get together for 4 days of talking? Simply to provide understanding, knowledge and support to keep trying to fight for all of them. I heard a lot of heartbreak from some of the families dealing with PTSD in their own families.
Every time there was a denial of what is going on, people got up and walked out of the room. Frankly I was wondering why some of them were there are all at the head of the room instead of sitting in back and listening. No one is such an expert they have nothing to learn about this. This is why having conferences is so important for anyone living with or working in mental health needs to participate in events like this whenever and wherever possible.
Throughout the years I've come up on many articles trying to diminish the magnitude of the suffering. Whenever this happened the only question in my mind was focused on why anyone would try to do this instead of listening, learning and being quiet until they knew the answers.
While I post about medications taken totally out of the report I read, I never discuss medication when helping veterans other than to tell them they may need it, to stop self-medicating and to talk to their doctor if they feel like their medication is not working. I have very little to offer on this subject because I am not a doctor and I just don't have enough knowledge to know I am helping instead of harming with the limited knowledge I do have on this subject. In other words, a little knowledge can do a lot of harm so I keep my mouth shut on this and won't step over the line using guess work.
Why can't "experts" do the same when it comes to PTSD? If they are experts with other issues, then they should stay where they are, focus on what they know and stop pretending to be experts on what they know very little about. Why can't they except history for what it is and stop trying to stand in the way of new data drawn from history? The numbers from the Rand Study did not shock me or surprise me at all because all I had to do was pay attention in the first place to the data from Vietnam veterans to know the Rand Study is a lot closer to reality than the VA and DOD numbers are. One more thing jumping out from all of this is the fact the VA and the DAV are jumping around like their hair is on fire trying to cope with all of this. If the numbers are only about 30,000, they would be fully capable of dealing with them otherwise. They are not so inept that 30,000 would totally overwhelm them.
Just open your eyes and know what real is and what an illusion is. If you don't know what the hell you are talking about then go sit in the back of the room and open your ears as well as your mind. Otherwise, you are standing in the way of healing and that is not helping!
The following are in response to some of the things I heard during the conference which caused me to walk out of the room.
FACT: Dr. Katz did conceal the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides. The emails did not just suddenly show up on Senator Akaka's desk. The Katz emails were discovered because of the law suit brought about by Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans United for Truth. The emails were what he sent because he was trying to cover up the data CBS found with their own research work. The emails were about harmful conditions attempting to be covered up after we already saw too many suicides.
FACT: Norma Perez email about not doing a diagnosis of PTSD, was what it was. No it was not a poor choice of words because of what she followed up this with and mentioned cost cutting and how they "didn't have time" to do a thorough diagnosis. This email did not suddenly show up but was discovered because of a Freedom Of Information Act filed by CREW and VoteVets.
While we are reading horrible stories about suicides and suffering of our troops and veterans, we would not be reading them if they were not happening. This is obvious! How could any of the service organizations be taking on the VA and the DOD if there were not problems that enabled them to be taken on? The DOD and the VA heads will defend everything they are doing no matter what harm is being done as long as they can get away with it. It's all as simple as that. If they were just simply mistaken on what they did, then why were they not willing to correct the harm done and leave it at that instead of defending what they did and their right to keep doing it?
Folks, this is really simple. If there is damage being done and no one is addressing it, the damage will continue and nothing will be fixed. We will keep reading more and more stories about suffering instead of less and less. This blog alone has over 2,000 posts on it and I doubt there are two hundred good stories on it. That's really sad when you consider that PTSD has been known for over 30 years and reported in humans since King David's time.
Senator Akaka Holds Hearing on VA's Systemic Indifference to Invisible Wounds
U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D - HI)
US Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs
Jun 05, 2008
June 4, 2008, Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, held a hearing today on the state of mental health care within the Department of Veterans Affairs. Today’s hearing follows recent findings that VA’s top mental health official attempted to suppress suicide data, while a psychologist at the Temple Veterans Affairs Medical Center suggested that her coworkers avoid diagnosing veterans with PTSD, in order to save time and resources. Akaka called both individuals, along with other high-ranking VA officials, to testify before Congress.
“Recent incidents indicate a possible trend of system-wide or systemic indifference to the invisible wounds of war. It is shameful, because veterans deserve better, and because it tarnishes the good work of the many VA mental health professionals who help veterans battle PTSD, depression, and other psychological wounds,” said Akaka. “Whatever the reasoning behind the mistakes that were made, VA must work to regain the confidence of veterans who now question whether VA is a friend or enemy.”
In their testimony, witnesses denied any systemic or deliberate efforts within VA to deny veterans care or compensation for psychological wounds. While Dr. Norma Perez, the psychologist from Texas, argued that there is little difference between adjustment disorder and PTSD, VA’s chief mental health official Dr. Ira Katz respectfully disagreed.
Chairman Akaka held today’s hearing as a part of the Committee’s broader effort to investigate the veterans’ mental health system, especially care for PTSD and suicide prevention. Last month, Akaka requested additional data on veteran suicide and quality control at VA health care facilities. Following the disclosure of the Temple VA email, Akaka and other Committee members requested an Inspector General investigation of the incident and facility.
June 5 VA E-Mail Scandal Update: Top VA Mental Health Official Contradicts VA Manager at Senate Hearing, Says VA Facility is Using Improper Diagnoses for Metnal Health
Senator Patty Murray
Jun 05, 2008
June 4, 2008, Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) questioned top Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials over a recent e-mail that discouraged VA employees from diagnosing veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The e-mail, which was written by VA manager Dr. Norma Perez, directed VA staff at a facility in Temple, Texas to diagnose "compensation-seeking veterans" with adjustment disorder, a diagnosis that has a lower disability payout than Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Dr. Perez appeared at the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing and was joined by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's top mental health official.
During questioning, Dr. Ira Katz said that he did not agree with diagnosing veterans with adjustment disorder in the way that Dr. Perez described - often more than a year after a veteran had returned home. Diagnostic guidelines for adjustment disorder say that it should not be diagnosed more than six months after the traumatic event.
"Unfortunately, today's hearing raises more questions than it answered," Murray said after the hearing. "Instead of getting to the bottom of this damaging e-mail, we learned that there may be deeper, systematic problems with how facilities are diagnosing mental health disorders." go here for more http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/10298
Murray seeks resignation of top VA mental health official
By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
(04-22) 15:19 PDT Washington, CA (AP) --
A Democratic senator on Tuesday called for the chief mental health official of the Department of Veterans Affairs to resign, saying he tried to cover up the rising number of veteran suicides.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's mental health director, deliberately withheld crucial information on the true suicide risk among veterans.
"Doctor Katz's irresponsible actions have been a disservice to our veterans, and it is time for him to go," said Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "The number one priority of the VA should be caring for our veterans, not covering up the truth."
Murray and other Democratic senators said they were appalled at e-mails showing Katz and other VA officials apparently trying to conceal the number of suicides by veterans. An e-mail message from Katz disclosed this week as part of a lawsuit that went to trial in San Francisco this week starts with "Shh!" and refers to the 12,000 veterans per year who attempt suicide while under department treatment.
"Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail asks.
