VA επιβεβαιώνει την αυτοκτονία προσπάθειας 18 κτηνιάτρων καθημερινά
Τετάρτη, 23η Απριλίου 2008
Από Jason Leopold |
VA δοκιμασμένες για να κρύψουν την έκταση του αποπειραθε'ντος παλαιμάχου οι αυτοκτονίες, ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο παρουσιάζουν. Οι κορυφαίοι ανώτεροι υπάλληλοι στη διοίκηση παλαιμάχων προσπάθησαν να κρύψουν τις πληροφορίες από το κοινό για την ξαφνική αύξηση των αποπειραθεισών αυτοκτονιών μεταξύ των παλαιμάχων που αντιμετωπίστηκαν ή επιδιώχθηκαν τη βοήθεια στα νοσοκομεία VA γύρω από τη χώρα, ένα προηγουμένως άγνωστο εσωτερικό ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο VA δείχνει.
Το ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο αποκαλύφθηκε Τρίτη σε μια ομοσπονδιακή δίκη σε ένα δικαστήριο σε βόρεια Καλιφόρνια όπου δύο ομάδες υπεράσπισης παλαιμάχων αρχειοθέτησαν μια class-action δίκη ενάντια στο VA ισχυριζόμενος ότι μια συστηματική διακοπή στο VA έχει οδηγήσει σε μια επιδημία των αυτοκτονιών μεταξύ των πολεμικών παλαιμάχων. Αυτές οι ομάδες απαιτούν ότι το VA έχει γυρίσει μακριά τους παλαιμάχους που έχουν επιδιώξει τη βοήθεια για τη posttraumatic αναταραχή πίεσης και ήταν αυτοκαταστροφικές. Μερικοί από τους παλαιμάχους, οι αξιώσεις δίκης, διάρκεσαν αργότερα τις ζωές τους.
Οι οργανώσεις που αρχειοθέτησαν τη δίκη, τους παλαιμάχους για την κοινή αίσθηση και τους παλαιμάχους που ενώθηκαν για την αλήθεια, θέλουν έναν ομοσπονδιακό δικαστή για να εκδώσουν μια προκαταρκτική εντολή για να αναγκάσουν το VA για να θεραπεύσουν αμέσως τους παλαιμάχους που παρουσιάζουν σημάδια PTSD και είναι σε κίνδυνο εσωτερικού συστήματος αυτοκτονίας και εξέτασης που χειρίζεται τις αξιώσεις οφελών. PTSD λέγεται ότι είναι η πιό επικρατούσα διανοητηκή διαταραχή που προκύπτει από τον αγώνα.
Ο Φεβρ. 13. , το 2008, ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο, που αποκαλύφθηκε στην ομοσπονδιακή Τρίτη δικαστηρίων, στάλη στο IRA Katz, ο διευθυντής διανοητικής υγείας του VA από Ev Chasen, ο κύριος διευθυντής επικοινωνιών της αντιπροσωπείας.
Το Chasen επιδίωξε την καθοδήγηση από Katz για τις ερωτήσεις συνέντευξης από τις ειδήσεις CBS, οι οποίες υπέβαλαν έκθεση εκτενώς σχετικά με τις αυτοκτονίες παλαιμάχων πέρυσι.
«Είναι το γεγονός ότι σταματάμε [αυτοκτονίες] τις καλές ειδήσεις, ή είναι ο καθαρός αριθμός κακές ειδήσεις; Και είναι αυτό περισσότερο απ' ό, τι εμείς έχει δει πάντα πριν; Δύναμη είναι κάτι που πέφτουμε σε μια γενική απελευθέρωση για τις προσπάθειες πρόληψης αυτοκτονίας μας, που (όπως ξέρετε πολύ καλύτερα από με) κυρίως περιλαμβάνουν τους εκπαιδευτικούς υπαλλήλους για να αναγνωρίσουν τα σημάδια προειδοποίησης της αυτοκτονίας,» Chasen γράψαμε Katz σε ένα ηλεκτρονικό ταχυδρομείο με τον τίτλο «όχι για το αίτημα συνέντευξης ειδήσεων CBS.»
Η απάντηση του Katz είναι τρομάζοντας. Είπε ότι το VA σχεδόν 1.000 προσπάθειες αυτοκτονίας το μήνα μεταξύ των πολεμικών παλαιμάχων που αντιμετωπίζονται έχει προσδιορίσει από το VA. Η απάντησή του σε Chasen δείχνει ότι δεν θέλησε το VA για να δημοσιεύσει αμέσως οποιαδήποτε στατιστικά στοιχεία που επιβεβαιώνουν εκείνο τον αριθμό, αλλά μάλλον προτεινόμενος ότι η αντιπροσωπεία γλιστρά ήσυχα τις πληροφορίες σε ένα δελτίο ειδήσεων.
“Shh!” Katz wrote in his response to Chasen. “Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1000 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 February email was sent shortly after the VA gave CBS News data that showed only a total of 790 attempted suicides in 2007 among veterans treated by the VA. In an email sent to the network Monday after Katz’s email was disclosed in court, he denied a “cover-up” and said he did not disclose the true figures of attempted suicides because he was unsure if it was accurate.
In a December email Katz sent to Brig. Gen. Michael J. Kussman, the undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration within the VA, that roughly 126 veterans of all wars commit suicide per week. He added that data the agency obtained from the Center for Disease Control showed that 20 percent of the suicides in the country are identified as war veterans.
The “VA’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us,” Katz said in the email he sent to Kussman.
Pehaps underscoring just how underprepared the VA was for the number of PTSD cases to emerge from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, documents released to support the plaintiffs’ allegations show that prior to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq the VA believed it would likely see a maximum of 8,000 cases where veterans showed signs of PTSD.
Last week, the RAND Corporation released a study that said about 300,000 U.S. troops sent to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from major depression or PTSD, and 320,000 received traumatic brain injuries. Since October 2001, about 1.6 million U.S. troops have deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many soldiers have completed more than two tours of duty meaning they are exposed to prolonged periods of combat-related stress or traumatic events.
“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Terri Tanielian, a researcher at RAND who worked on the study. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation. Unfortunately, we found there are many barriers preventing them from getting the high-quality treatment they need.”
Those are statistics Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, has been warning lawmakers about for several years.
“The scope of PTSD in the long term is enormous and must be taken seriously. When all of our 1.6 million service members eventually return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, based on the current rate of 20 percent, VA may face up 320,000 total new veterans diagnosed with PTSD,” Sullivan told a Congressional committee in July 2007. If America fails to act now and overhaul the broken DoD and VA disability systems, there may a social catastrophe among many of our returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. That is why VCS reluctantly filed suit against VA in Federal Court…Time is running out.”
Sullivan has urged Congress to enact legislation to immediately overhaul the VA.
“Congress should legislate a presumption of service connection for veterans diagnosed [with] PTSD who deployed to a war zone after 9/11,” Sullivan told lawmakers last year. “A presumption makes it easier for dedicated and hard-working VA employees to process veterans’ claims. This results in faster medical treatment and benefits for our veterans.”
Yet despite Sullivan’s dire predictions and calls for legislative action the issue has not been given priority treatment by lawmakers. Instead, Congress continued to fund the war in Iraq to the tune of about $200 billion and will likely pour another $108 billion into Iraq later next month. Meanwhile, a backlog of veterans’ benefits claims continue to pile up at the VA.
The VA said it has hired more than 3,000 mental healthcare professionals over the past two years to deal with the increasing number of PTSD cases, but the problems persist.
VA Says Vets Not ‘Entitled’ to Healthcare
In opening statements Monday, Richard Lepley, a Justice Department attorney, said the VA runs a “world-class health care system.”
But Gordon Erspamer, the lead attorney representing the two veterans groups, said the VA has arbitrarily denied coverage to thousands of vets, that it takes nearly a year to decide whether it will provide coverage to veterans suffering from PTSD, and takes as long as four years for the VA to address veterans appeals cases.
“Seeking help from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs… involves a two-track system,” says a copy of the plaintiff’s trial brief filed in federal court last week.
“A veteran will go to the Veterans’ Health Administration for diagnosis and medical care; and a veteran goes to the Veterans’ Benefits Administration to apply for service-connection and disability compensation….
“VA is failing these veterans as they move along both of these parallel tracks. They are not receiving the healthcare to which they are entitled (and where they do receive it, it is unreasonably delayed) and they are not able to get timely compensation for their disabilities, which means that they have no safety net. These two problems combine to create a perfect storm for PTSD veterans: they receive no treatment, so their symptoms get worse; and they receive no compensation, so they cannot go elsewhere for treatment. The failings of these two separate but interrelated systems are what this action seeks to address.”
The lawsuit the groups filed alleges that numerous VA practices stemming from a 1998 law violate the constitutional and statutory rights of veterans suffering from PTSD by denying veterans mandated medical care.
Justice Department attorneys had argued in court papers filed last month that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were not “entitled” to the five-years of free healthcare upon their return from combat as mandated by Congress in the “Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act.” Rather, the VA argued, medical treatment for the war veterans was discretionary based on the level of funding available in the VA’s budget.
But during a court hearing hearing last month before U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, Dr. Gerald Cross, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Health Administration, said that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only entitled to free healthcare, but he said “there is no co-pay.”
Soldier’s Suicide Warnings Ignored
Chris Scheuerman, a retired Special Forces masters sergeant, testified before a Congressional committee last month that there is an urgent need for mental health reform in the military.
Scheuerman said his son, Pfc. Jason Scheuerman, went to see an Army psychologist because he had been suicidal.
The Army psychologist wrote up a report saying Jason Scheuerman “was capable of (faking) mental illness in order to manipulate his command,” according to documents the soldiers father turned over to Congress.
“Jason desperately needed a second opinion after his encounter with the Army psychologist,” Chris Scheuerman testified in mid-March before the Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee.
“The Army did offer him that option, but at his own expense. How is a PFC (private first class) in the middle of Iraq supposed to get to a civilian mental health care provider at his own expense?” he said. “I believe a soldier should be afforded the opportunity to a second opinion via teleconference with a civilian mental health care provider of their own choice.”
Jason Scheuerman shot himself with a rifle on July 30, 2005. The 20-year-old’s suicide note was nailed to the close in his barracks. It said, “Maybe now I can get some peace.”
See More:USA News WarfareHave Your Say: VA confirms 18 vets attempt suicide every day
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008at 1:53 amand is filed under War & Terrorism News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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