Suicide Calls Up 40 Percent

Suicide calls are up and so are suicides. So what good does all the "awareness" do when they reach the point where they do not want to live instead of getting what they need to heal?

Increase in suicide calls takes toll on 911 dispatchers
The Coloradoan
Sarah Jane Kyle
June 21, 2016

Increasing suicides and suicide threat calls have become "a daily occurrence" in the last five years, he said. Last year, 81 people died by suicide in Larimer County, nearing the record of 83 set in 2014.

Shortly after completing his training to become a 911 dispatcher in Fort Collins, Brendan Solano handled a call he'll never forget — a suicidal man "holding the gun in his hands."

Solano spent an hour on the phone talking with the man about his military service, his kids and anything else he could think of to keep him on the phone until police could intervene and help the man.

"I didn't know what to ask, what to say," said Solano, 24, who became a dispatcher nearly three years ago. "I didn't know this guy. He doesn't know me. ... Those calls are really hard to deal with."

And there have been many of those calls.

“It's another person calling in and asking for help. You've got to be able to get them help, just like anybody else.”

Suicide and suicide threat calls to Fort Collins 911 increased by 40 percent from 2011 to 2015, according to Fort Collins Police Services.
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Veterans emergency care bills tied up with "sloppy procedures"

VA didn't pay some veterans' health costs, report says
USA TODAY
by Gregg Zoroya
March 7, 2014

Dozens of uninsured and disabled veterans owed compensation for emergency health care costs were erroneously turned down by the Department of Veterans Affairs, federal investigators say.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Federal law requires VA to pay for emergency care disabled veterans get at non-VA hospitals
Government pays benefits even if injury or illness is unrelated to service-connected disability
GAO attributes claims denials to sloppy procedures

Even as the Obama administration works to provide health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, government investigators uncovered dozens of cases where the VA failed to cover emergency hospital costs for uninsured disabled veterans.

Government Accountability Office investigators say the series of errors committed by the VA could be examples of a broader problem in a specialized area of compensation.

The Department of Veterans Affairs must reimburse non-VA hospitals that provide emergency care to disabled veterans - such as for car accident injuries - if the veteran is uninsured, enrolled in VA health care and has received recent treatment at VA.

Federal law requires that such emergency expenses be covered by the federal government even if the injury or illness is not related to the veteran's service-connected disability.

But when GAO looked at a sample of 128 of these claims brought by non-VA hospitals in 2012 seeking reimbursement and that were later denied by the VA, investigators discovered mistakes in half of them, the report says.

The claims were brought to four VA hospitals - Washington D.C. VA Medical Center, White River Junction VA Medical Center in Vermont, Black Hills VA Health Care System in South Dakota and the North Texas VA Health Care System.
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