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WASHINGTON – Every suicide in America is a tragedy. VA cares about each veteran and their physical and mental health. We have more than 10,000 mental health workers who have dedicated themselves to helping veterans cope with the issues and crises they face. We operate a veteran suicide hot-line which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to help any veteran in need. That number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). VA has suicide prevention coordinators at each of our VA Medical Centers.
VA strongly encourages veterans who may be considering harming themselves in some way to seek treatment from VA or other health care providers in their communities. Our people are there to help during a crisis. VA's care and treatment works and is available for veterans with PTSD, depression and other mental health problems.
VA operates the largest mental health care system in the country, spending $3 billion each year on its mental health programs, and has taken several measures to increase its mental health services in recent years. Those include new programs bringing mental health into primary care, intensified rehabilitation for those with serious mental illnesses, and expanded programs for homeless veterans and those with substance abuse problems.
VA is concerned that the data CBS presented in its broadcast was not reviewed by independent scientists as most legitimate academic studies are. Regardless of this questionable journalistic tactic, VA takes the problem of suicide very seriously and wants veterans to come to VA for help if they are under stress or in crisis.
VA is constantly reviewing scientific findings, both from our own research and that of others, to guide us in improving care for veterans. We are reviewing the limited information that CBS has made available to us and are accelerating our own research to ensure we are doing everything possible to improve the information available to the medical and research communities about suicides in veterans as a means of better understanding how to prevent these tragedies.
End of Story:
Rocky's comments below:
It is not surprising that the VA would take this stance, but the fact is that they have done little regarding this issue. Granted, they may have started a suicide hot-line but how many of those answering the phone on the other end of that hot-line speak English, or speak it well enough for a mentally upset veteran to understand them? And what do you think happens when a veteran who is in mental crisis calls and gets someone who does not speak English as a primary language and has a marked accent?
The VA says it has 10,000 employees to help with those who may be contemplating suicide or have other mental health issues. Again, how many of them speak English as a primary language?
As Doc pointed out in his post, finding caregivers who speak English is becoming a major problem in the area of caregivers, not only in the VA but in many of the health-care fields. In the VA, especially when dealing with PTSD and all it's ramifications, this is a very critical point. For example, would you expect a rape victim to accept and doctor, or any health-care worker, who looked like her rapist? That is what the VA expects veterans, in essence, to do when they send a Nam vet, vet for example, to an oriental doctor, or an Iraqi vet to a doctor from Iran, Pakistan or other like country. This is not a race issue but an issue of common sense and adequate health-care. One can not logically expect a rape victim to open up and gain help by talking about her experience to a doctor who looks and speaks like her rapist. Neither can the VA expect a vet to open up and speak of their issues with a doctor who looks and sounds like the enemy that cause their trauma to begin with. Is it any wonder that a veteran might consider suicide when, after going for help at the VA, they are faced with the enemy, at least in their minds? And, who knows, maybe literally, I mean do we really know what type of screening these foreign doctors get when coming to this country to work for the VA?
I don't want to sound paranoid, but then hell, let's say it like it is, I don't trust these foreign doctors, in fact, I won't go to one. If the VA sends me to a doctor who does not speak English as a "first language" I ask for another doctor, period. They tell me I can't have one, bullshit, I will file a complaint for increased anxiety, caused by the the VA, due to new trauma experienced during treatment of my PTSD and send it all the way to the top, the news media and anyone else who might listen. Once that balls gets rolling who knows where it might go? That is what I am speaking about when I say United We Stand, the very purpose of this site. We must stick together on issues just as this! Remember, the VA works for us not the other way around! Don't let the VA tell you you can't change doctors or VA facilities as that is total bullshit!
We have a right to see doctors who speak OUR LANGUAGE!
This may appear a bit off point in relation to the suicide issue but I don't really think it is off point at all. The point I have made before is that suicide is caused, at least in part, by hopelessness and how much more hopeless and helpless can one feel than when trying to speak of one's health problems to someone who does not understand what they are saying and just as bad or worse, they don't understand?
We fight wars in foreign lands and we do not have to depend on speaking the language, in what ever country we find ourselves, in order to survive, yet, it is getting to the point here in our own country that we must speak various languages in order to obtain that which is vital to our survival. How wrong is that!?! Our tax dollars are going to support illegals, our products cost more because the labels and instructions for use have to be printed in various languages, (for export purposes my butt!) thus, the cost of production goes up. Hell, most of our products today are not even made by Americans. Even Harley Davidson's, the "American Motorcycle", products are now made in China! Do we have to learn Spanish, or some other foreign language in order to survive in OUR OWN COUNTRY?!?!
We use to joke about people in our nation not having to speak German or Japanese because we won WWII but now we find ourselves having to press one for English in order not to be spoken to in Spanish and we won the war against Mexico long before WWII. Think about it and wake the hell up America!!!
Bottom line, to me, the suicide issue and the issue of illegals, the feelings of anger and hopelessness that are created by both, go hand in hand. Our troops are going off to foreign lands to fight wars only to come home and find that they have to depend health-care workers speaking the same language as the enemy they just faced in combat, to gain health-care and just compensation for their wounds, both physical and mental. Is it any wonder that the suicide rate is skyrocketing?
When looking at all that is going on around you, when observing the actions of our government officials, when reading and listening to what our news media is saying, keep in mind the Roman Empire which was conquered from within, in part, due to the number of foreign peoples it had within it's primary borders.
If we continue to take in the oppressed of other lands we may find that those who were once oppressed have become the oppressors, the minority has become the majority and our freedom will be but a memory. Wake up America this is not a bad dream, it is reality!!!
Rocky
173rd Airborne Brigade (SEP)
Charlie Co. 75th Rangers
Vietnam 1967-70
VA Service Officer "C" Rangers
http://www.e20-lrp-c75-rgr.org
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