Widow Wants To Know Why Husband Died At Brockton VA

How did this Marine veteran overdose at a Brockton VA hospital?

The Enterprise
By Tom Relihan
Posted Aug 5, 2017

Marine Corps veteran Hank Brandon Lee was found unresponsive in his room and was later pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Medical Center on March 4. He had overdosed on fentanyl, a powerful synthetic painkiller, according to his death certificate. Now, his widow wants answers.

BROCKTON – Jamie-Lee Hasted had just hung up the phone after a conversation with her husband, retired Marine Lance Cpl. Hank Brandon Lee, and headed out to mail him a package of family photographs.

He would need them, she thought, because he was nearly 1,500 miles away from his home in Saucier, Mississippi, in the Brockton Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s psychiatric unit being treated for severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Later that day, she sent him a message on Facebook, but received no response.

“You going to call me anytime today or are you sleeping again!” she wrote.

Pallas Wahl, a spokesperson for the VA, said Saturday that it is still not known how Lee acquired the drugs.

“Sadly, Lance Cpl. Lee was a victim of the opioid epidemic that kills nearly six people daily in Massachusetts,” Wahl said. “Lance Cpl. Lee suffered a fatal overdose of fentanyl while a patient at the Brockton campus. Fentanyl was not prescribed to any patient within our inpatient psychiatry unit, and Lance Cpl. Lee had no personal visitors during his inpatient psychiatry stay.”
read more here

Pentagon Says TBI and PTSD Troops Not Getting Proper Care...Again

Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on suicides is one of those videos that everyone needed to watch, but hey, Facebook is more fun. Right? Then again, August 14, 2007 I was wondering why the press wasn't on suicide watch so that maybe, just maybe someone would have done something that would have actually worked. Then again, that was assuming they wanted to do what would work instead of what was easiest.

Troops at risk for suicide not getting needed care, report finds
USA TODAY
Tom Vanden Brook
Published Aug. 7, 2017

WASHINGTON — Pentagon health care providers failed to perform critical follow-up for many troops diagnosed with depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome who also were at high risk for suicide, according to a new study released Monday by the RAND Corp.

Just 30% of troops with depression and 54% with PTSD received appropriate care after they were deemed at risk of harming themselves. The report, commissioned by the Pentagon, looked at the cases of 39,000 troops who had been diagnosed in 2013 with depression, PTSD or both conditions. USA TODAY received an advance copy of the report.

“We want to ensure that they get connected with behavioral health care,” said Kimberly Hepner, the report’s lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization. “The most immediate action — removal of firearms — can help to reduce risk of suicide attempts.”

The report, titled Quality of Care for PTSD and Depression in the Military Health System, also found that one third of troops with PTSD were prescribed with a medication harmful to their condition.

From 2001 to 2014, about 2.6 million troops have deployed to combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq. Estimates on how many have been affected by post-traumatic stress vary widely — from 4% to 20%, according to the report. Meanwhile, suicide among troops spiked crisis proportions. The rate of suicide doubled between 2005 and 2012, according to the Pentagon. It has stabilized but has not diminished; the rate remains about the same for the part of the American public that it compares with, about 20 per 100,000 people.

The key intervention to prevent suicide involves talking to the service member about their access to firearms, Hepner said. It’s also one of the most sensitive, given the nature of their work and that many troops own their own guns.

“This is important for service members because suicide death by firearms is the most common method,” Hepner said. “So the provider needs to have that discussion about access to firearms. Not only their service weapon but their access to personal weapons.”
read more here

Then again, all you had to do was read THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR, but don't feel bad. No one else read it, or did anything about any of it.

Iraq Veteran-Amputee More Proud of Surviving PTSD

'I wear my scars as a badge of honour': Iraqi war heroine says she's more proud of surviving PTSD than the bomb blast that buried her alive and claimed her leg
Daily Mail
Unity Blott
August 6, 2017

Hannah Campbell, 33, from Northampton, was injured in Basra in 2007
Blast left her with serious abdomen injuries, and a leg amputation followed
The former Army lance corporal defied the odds to have a second child
Despite her traumatic experience she says she's most proud of surviving PTSD

A mother-of-two who lost her leg an a mortar attack in Iraq says she's more proud of surviving PTSD than the blast that claimed her limb.

Former Army lance corporal Hannah Campbell, from Northampton, was given just a one in ten chance of surviving the horrific injuries she sustained after being buried alive in the 2007 Basra attack.

But the 33-year-old amputee, who has since battled suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder, now sees her scars as a 'badge of honour'.

She told the Sunday People: 'I don’t see these things as flaws any more, I see them as a part of my history and part of me.'
read more here

Jesse Bird's Battle Ended But Fight For Justice Goes On For His Family

Gold Coast soldier Jesse Bird’s last goodbye after lengthy struggle with post-traumatic stress

Gold Coast Bulletin

Jack Harbour

August 6, 2017

Family and friends say Jesse spent the best part of seven years dealing with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to recognise his post-traumatic stress disorder and to put him on a pension so he could move on with his life and become a teacher after deployment to Afghanistan in 2009 and ’10.

Family and friends at Surfers Paradise beach. Picture: Mike Batterham.

FOR months Karen and John Bird have campaigned for justice for their son, a post-traumatic stress-affected war veteran they say took his own life after being turned down for compensation. 

But yesterday, the two grieving parents took a moment with Jesse Bird’s closest mates to reflect on the good times and properly say goodbye to their son. The TSS graduate and accomplished swimmer and surf life saver’s friends paddled out from Northcliffe Surf Life Saving Club at Surfers Paradise to scatter the 32-year-old’s ashes in the surf.
read more here

Vietnam Veteran's Daughter Wouldn't Take No For Answer From VA--Dad Survived

Veteran's daughter battles VA, gets results

WLBZ 
Zach Blanchard 
August 05, 2017 

BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) – A Vietnam Veteran battling a serious rare bacterial infection at a hospital in Bangor was finally being transferred to a VA Hospital in Boston Saturday.

66-year-old David White from North Carolina was visiting his daughter in Bangor when he fell ill and checked in to St. Joseph Hospital. 

His daughter, Heather Donald, said she struggled with the VA for days to get her father transferred. 

She said doctors told her he needed to see a specialist because the infection could not be treated with antibiotics. 

“It's extremely frustrating,” Donald said. “They're telling me that there's nothing they can do. They don't have space available." Donald took to Facebook, was interviewed by 13 News Now in North Carolina and The Boston Globe. 

She also reached out to Senator Collins Congressman Poliquin’s offices in search of answers. read more here