VA fails suicidal veteran

#Middlebury #Veterans

With all the fanfare about the suicide prevention programs created to help veterans who are suffering, it would seem that all a veteran would need to do is present himself at the closest Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility and help would immediately be there. That’s not necessarily so.

A veteran presented himself at a VA emergency room suffering from suicidal thoughts. He was in pain, suffered from withdrawal seizures and was on medication that had been tapered down until he had no more pills. Six days later he was dead.

At the ER the veteran asked to be admitted for inpatient detox. Instead they scheduled him for a same-day psych evaluation. A Veteran Experience Specialist took the veteran back to the ER and told them, again, that he’d asked for inpatient care. The veteran was handed off to an outpatient psychiatrist who recommended either inpatient detox or inpatient psychiatry care, inpatient in either case. The psychiatrist also escorted the veteran back to the ER.

After multiple hand-offs, the veteran was told to go home. He refused to leave. Another physician accused him of malingering and called the police, who hauled the veteran out of the building. The veteran asked to go back to the ER for specific knee pain.

Back in the ER, multiple individuals heard the second ER physician say that the veteran could go shoot himself, and “I do not care.” (The VA did not get rid of this physician for nine more months, despite a long history of verbal abuse.)

In all, within 12 hours, the veteran saw a total of seven medical providers. Five days later the outpatient psychiatrist finally made an appointment for a substance-use program, but no one told the veteran. He missed the appointment, of course, but no one followed up.

The next day, six days after his ER visit, the veteran was dead from suicide.

© 2020 King Features Synd. Inc.