Pittsburgh VA Listening to Veterans

Pittsburgh VA reaches out to local veterans
WTOV NBC 9 News
by Sean Eiler

“That's one of the things that have changed in the VA over the last year, is increased outreach to the veterans, trying to hear from them so they can give us their feedback on what we're doing well with and what we can improve on,” said Karin McGraw, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.

OHIO COUNTY, W.Va.
A local veterans affairs office is aiming to better serve the veterans in the area and gain feedback at what they can improve on to help those that have served us.

The Veterans Affairs office of Pittsburgh held a claims clinic and town hall at the Wheeling vet center Friday afternoon not only help local veterans, but also to strengthen the trust between vets and the VA.

Officials on hand say there are often misconceptions about the VA and the work they do, so they hope to improve not only the help they offer but their relationships with local veterans.

Members of the VA had one-on-one claims sessions with veterans to help make their claims process easier and more efficient to make sure they receive the care they need.

A town hall was also held to allow veterans to address any questions or concerns they may have.
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After Son Committed Suicide Mom Alerts Others

Pittsburg mother warns of PTSD's dangers after soldier son commits suicide
FOX 2 News
March 14, 2016

A mom in Pittsburg wants to speak out about the signs of post traumatic stress disorder after her soldier son killed himself recently.

The family of 30-year-old army veteran Terry O'Hearn is holding a memorial service for him at the VFW Post in Antioch this Saturday. His mother Robin Kiepert wants to help other military families struggling to cope with PTSD.

"For people like Terry, it's a need to take care of them when they get back. They're not the same person that left," said Kiepert, who's an Air Force veteran herself.

Kiepert says Terry was loving, playful and easygoing when he enlisted in the Army.

As a soldier, he saw combat during two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He survived with minor physical injuries, but the emotional wounds ran deep.

"When he got back from Afghanistan, he was angry. His personality really changed," said Kiepert.

She says the change was initially understandable because there is a period of adjustment to civilian life. But over time, it became more pronounced and then a suicide attempt, followed by treatment at the VA hospital in Palo Alto.

She says Terry was diagnosed with PTSD.
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Millions Gone For Pittsburgh VA Clinic

Secretary of VA responds to questions on Deshon Woods debacle
WTAE News
By Bofta Yimam
Nov 17, 2015

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald calls himself the new sheriff. He was appointed by President Obama last year and he was in Pittsburgh for a university lecture Tuesday.

Pristine woods wiped out all for a new veterans outpatient health care clinic at Deshon Woods in Butler township. The problem is, that clinic never happened.

We took the opportunity to ask McDonald about our investigation into the decimation of Deshon Woods in Butler Township and the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars. The small community expected the new VA health care clinic to be built at the site of Deshon Woods, but the contract with the approved company was canceled.

"The VA is improving, give us another try, if you've already tried us once we're trying to rebuild trust," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald.

It was the underlining message McDonald sent into a University of Pittsburgh lecture - an audience full of potential VA employees, but rebuilding trust is not as easy for those in Butler Township.

"People are very angry about it, people are very upset about it," said Amy Smith, Butler Township.

Action News Investigates highlighted the VA's failure to properly vet a company before it was approved to build a new health care clinic at Deshon Woods.

The result? Pristine woods were torn down before that company's contract was canceled due to an Office of Inspector General report that uncovered major flaws, including a finding that the company "was financed by a man who plead guilty to bribery and racketeering charges."
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Female Veterans Torment Focus After Suicide

Recent Pittsburgh suicide brings to light issues tormenting female veterans 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Sean D. Hamill
April 9, 2015

“A lot of times in life, a person just needs someone to listen to them,”

The suicide of a Plum veteran last week in the parking lot at the Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs’ H.J. Heinz facility in O’Hara was tragic because she was a young woman who seemed to have much to look forward to.

Former Army Staff Sgt. Michelle R. Langhorst, 31, served nine years in the Army, mostly as a member of the military police, before an honorable discharge in 2012. She had graduated from Point Park University last year and recently got a job as a security supervisor at UPMC Shadyside.

“She was moving forward. She had everything going for her,” said Natalie Guiler, who taught Ms. Langhorst last year in a tutorial class at Point Park. “I am devastated about Michelle’s death.”

But Ms. Langhorst’s death stood out for two main reasons: she was female and she had been receiving behavioral health treatment at the VA for at least a couple of years.

Both categories put her in a distinct minority among the painfully large number of veterans — about 22 a day, nationally, according to one study that estimated the figure based on data from 21 states — who kill themselves.

“What we try to do is give people hope,” said Veronica Lucious, who has been a suicide prevention case worker for the Pittsburgh VA since 2009.

She spends most of her day on the phone, checking in with veterans who have been flagged either by their doctor, family or friends, as being at-risk.

“A lot of times in life, a person just needs someone to listen to them,” she said.
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Female Veteran Committed Suicide In VA Parking Lot

Veteran commits suicide in VA parking lot 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Madasyn Czebiniak

April 1, 2015 A Plum woman shot herself in the head Monday afternoon in the parking lot of the H.J. Heinz campus of the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System in Aspinwall. 

The Allegheny County medical examiner’s office identified the victim as Michelle Langhorst, 31, and said the suicide took place at 1:37 p.m. in the parking lot at 1010 Delafield Road.
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Reservist faked papers to receive VA pay

W. Pa. reservist faked papers to receive VA pay
San Francisco Chronicle
June 11, 2013

PITTSBURGH (AP) — An Air Force reservist forged a document to make it appear he was being deployed to active duty so he could continue receiving pay from his full-time job with the Veterans Administration health system in Pittsburgh.

Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh say that cost the VA about $14,000.
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Pittsburgh VA hospital under investigation for deadly disease

VA hospital under investigation for deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak
January 11, 2013

(CBS News) The Veterans Affairs Inspector General is investigating a Pittsburgh VA nursing home, to determine whether hospital administrators took appropriate action to prevent an deadly outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at the facility.

Outbreaks of the deadly strain of pneumonia, are rare and most hotels and hospitals have plans in place to control the bacteria, legionella, that causes the disease.

Legionnaires' disease is contracted when bacteria that grows in water systems is transmitted through the inhalation of water vapor. As many as 18,000 people are hospitalized with disease each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Legionnaires kills patient at Pittsburgh VA hospital

Legionnaires' kills Pittsburgh VA hospital patient
December 1, 2012
By Sean D. Hamill
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System declared Friday that the water system at its University Drive hospital in Oakland is now clear of Legionnaires' disease-causing bacteria that has killed at least one patient.

At the same time, however, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that while it has only confirmed that five cases of Legionnaires' originated in the hospital's water system, there have been another 24 cases of Legionnaires' reported at the hospital since January 2011 -- eight cases in which patients picked up the disease from outside the hospital and another 16 that the VA is not sure where patients contracted the disease.

One of the five who got Legionnaires' at the hospital has died, and the family of another patient who died thinks he may have contracted the disease at the hospital.
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825,000 veterans await disability payments, inquiry finds

825,000 veterans await disability payments, inquiry finds
September 21, 2012
By Bill Heltzel
PublicSource

For more than two years, a former Marine gunnery sergeant from New Kensington has waited for a ruling on whether he is entitled to disability payments for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Matt Hannan, 35, said he filed the claim with the Veterans Benefits Administration before he was medically discharged in 2010, following 15 years of service and two tours of duty in Iraq.

"Every time I try to get an answer, I get no answer," he said.

Mr. Hannan is one of nearly 825,000 veterans nationwide stymied by a bureaucratic backlog that has delayed payments for war-related disabilities, according to a national analysis by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Pittsburgh is one of the slowest regional offices in the country, ranking 44th out of 58 in early September, according to further analysis by PublicSource. More than 11,000 claims were pending and the average wait was nearly 10 months. Nationally, the wait time is more than eight months, and appeals can add years to the delays.
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Vietnam Vet sent home from hospital in gown and IV still in?

Bey is a Vietnam veteran and unable to speak for himself. He couldn't have asked why they were sending him home like this but that does not excuse the fact it happened. What the hell is wrong with the staff that this happened at all?

Mom Furious After Vet Son Released From Hospital In Gown
Posted: 3:28 pm EDT May 12, 2009
Updated: 4:22 pm EDT May 12, 2009

PITTSBURGH -- A mother is up in arms after her son, a Vietnam veteran, is returned home from the hospital still wearing a gown and IV needle in his arm.

L. Coleman Bey is an Army veteran of the Vietnam War who receives medical treatment at the Veteran Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System. He was admitted Thursday because of low blood pressure and returned home Monday night by van service.
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http://www.wpxi.com/news/19441125/detail.html

Iraq vets' troubles appear long after return

"Sometimes the person with the mental issue is the last to know," said Dr. Milliken. "They might not come looking for help, but if we can catch the symptoms before they become a problem, they'll be better off."

Iraq vets' troubles appear long after return
Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Wade Malcolm, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It started about a month after he came home, innocently enough. Staff Sgt. Frederick Johnson missed his fellow soldiers.

During a year stationed at Anaconda base in Iraq -- nicknamed "Mortaritaville" -- he says he looked after them like a father, eyes always focused on the horizon, scanning for danger.

And at night, he clutched a half-gallon bottle of any liquor he could find, emptying two or three a week.

After he returned home in December 2005, his dangerous coping methods progressed to crack cocaine. Already depressed by separating from the Ohio-based 373rd Medical Company -- the only people, he said, who could understand his war experience -- he grappled with his emerging fear of crowds, his aversion to loud noises and the horror of his nightmares. They often ended with him leaping out of bed into a low crawl position.

After a year battling addiction and the lingering effects of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which the Army initially failed to diagnose, Sgt. Johnson, 38, is starting his life over at the VA Pittsburgh's Highland Drive Division.

He is among thousands of soldiers overlooked by previous mental health screening methods that, according to a new Army study released earlier this month, "substantially underestimate the mental health burden" of Iraq War veterans.

With increased congressional funding, the Army is trying to stop soldiers in Sgt. Johnson's situation from slipping through the cracks. The study compared results from soldiers who received only an initial mental health screening and those who received initial screening and then were reassessed after several months.
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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07329/836618-85.stm