Taking the stigma out of mental health issues

Mental health professionals talk to Congress about taking the stigma out of mental health issues for soldiers

May 16, 2012 | By Kitty Felde

One in three U.S. military personnel with post-traumatic stress never seeks treatment, according to a recent survey of 4,000 military family members.
Mental health professionals from various branches of the military told Congress on Wednesday that the biggest challenge to getting service members to seek help is the stigma of mental illness.
The U.S. military is trying to make it easier for active duty and former personnel to use mental health services. Democratic Congresswoman Grace Napolitano of Norwalk and members of the Mental Health Caucus heard about increased support from military leaders who say mental health professionals improve the “operational readiness” of their units.
Navy psychologist Dr. John Ralph told members that every branch of the military has started "embedding" mental health professionals within units.
"A traditional model for mental health care," he said, "is that a service member may have to take off work, drive to the hospital, see a mental health provider, explain to his or her boss why he or she is gone for that many hours. And it’s difficult to do that for many reasons."
Embedding also increases the trust of soldiers and sailors for psychologists and psychiatrists.
But Colonel John Forbes, director of psychological health for the U.S. Air Force, said the best way to get airmen to seek help is assure them they’ll keep their jobs after they do so.
Forbes said the Air Force retains 75 percent of personnel diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.
"So when you’re thinking about what reduces stigma, it’s what happens to that individual," said Forbes. "If they’re going to be separated, or if some bad thing’s going to happen to their career, that’s obviously going to raise stigma on an organizational level."
The Veterans Administration reports that it’s addressing mental health issues with about one in four veterans who seek health care services. That’s more than a million vets reporting traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety disorders.
The VA is now trying to reach military people where they are. So far, they’ve downloaded the VA’s new “PTSD Coach” mobile phone app more than 55,000 times. The app contains a self-assessment and connections to mental health professionals.
The VA is also promoting an interactive website with hundreds of short videos where service members tell their own story about mental health issues. The Make the Connection website is being advertised on billboards, via text messaging, and there's even a QR code that will take mobile phone users directly to the site.
Last year, the Defense Department reported 282 military suicides.

How many miles will you pledge this Memorial Day?

wear blue Runs for the Fallen

This Memorial Day, we are asking members of our worldwide community to hit the streets and run in honor of the fallen. A long run, or short walk, the distance doesn't matter. But we are asking members to go online and pledge miles in honor of the Fallen so that together we can create a community dedicated to honoring the ultimate sacrifice.

While Americans may pause to reflect, for many, Memorial Day represents a long weekend typically filled with backyard celebrations and sunshine. For members of wear blue: run to remember, it is a day to remember each life sacrificed in a positive, life-affirming way.

Photo by Zach Wingfield - Amica Seattle Marathon

It is not about pledging money, it's about pledging miles so that together we can create a living memorial. How many miles should you run? What number is meaningful to you?

 3 miles for the 3 years you have been deployed?

 5 miles for the 5 branches of the American Military?

 9 miles for the 9 times you moved while in the military?

 11 miles for the 11 years since September 11, 2001?

http://www.wearblueruntoremember.org/wear-blue-runs-for-the-fallen.html

LT Kim XO, Me and CPT Hallett Commander A Co 1-17th, NTC 2009

Wear Blue was started by Lisa Hallett after the death of her husband CPT John Hallett (I was his First Sergeant in A Company 1^st Battalion, 17^th Infantry) John died during our deployment to Afghanistan in 2009. This is a phenomenal organization and something great to be a part of. My fiancée Cynthia (http://rundreamlaugh.blogspot.com/) is an avid supporter and has participated in several projects with them. She will be running the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon with them this year.

Me running the XTC Boise foothills 12k 2011

Cytnhia running the Seattle Rock and Roll Marathon with
the wear blue: run to remember group.

"6,444 American Service Members have given their lives in the Global War on Terror. This Memorial Day, pledge to run or walk at least 1 mile in honor of our Soldiers. Please follow the link below to pledge your miles and share this on your Facebook status so others can pledge their miles too. " from wear blue website.

So pledge your miles and post on either my Facebook page or on my Blog as a comment. Cynthia has pledge 27 miles and here are the names we are running for;

Iraq (Mosul 2004-2005) 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment 

CPT William Jacobsen, JR. 21 Dec, 2004

SSG Robert Johnson 21 Dec 2004

SPC Lionel Ayro Dec 21, 2004

SPC Clint Gertson Feb 19,2005

1SG Michael Bordelon May 10, 2005

SGT Robert Ayres III Sept 29, 2007

Afghanistan (2009-2010) 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry 

SGT Tom Troy 18 Aug 2009

CPT John Hallett  25 Aug 2009

SPC Dennis Williams 25 Aug 2009

SPC Kevin Graham 26 Sep 2009

SPC Kyle Coumas 21 Oct 2009

So get off your butt and hit the street with your unit PT shirt on, you will feel beter when you open that beer later......

Veterans Facing Significantly Longer Mental Health Care Waits Than Publicized

I have had a one year wait for my claims, I have been waiting so long my advocate at the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) forgot who I was, and I am still waiting. I submitted a request to have surgery on my wrist and that took me 8 months to get done. This is really becoming a trying experience.

Posted by Jeff Ousley

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has been greatly overestimating how quickly it provides care to veterans, according to a report released this week by the VA Inspector General.
First-time patients seeking mental health services are supposed to receive an initial examination within 24 hours and a full follow-up exam within 14 days. Last year, the VHA reported that 95% of its patients were being seen within this two week window.

But the Inspector General determined the 95 percent figure only measured how long it took to conduct the evaluation once it had been scheduled, not how long the patient waited to be seen. Using the same data, this new report found that nearly half of veterans seeking health care for the first time waited an average of 50 days before receiving a full evaluation.
The IG report also found that only two-thirds of patients received treatment within 14 days of being evaluated, another VHA requirement.
“This report confirms what we have long been hearing, that our veterans are waiting far too long to get the mental health care they so desperately need,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “It is deeply disturbing and demands action from the VA.”
The Veterans Affairs Committee commissioned the Inspector General’s report.

Staffing Shortages

Part of the problem is that there are not enough employees to keep up with the increasing demand for care. VHA staff has increased 45 percent since 2005, but the number of patients has increased by almost the same amount.
Last week, the VA announced that they plan to hire an additional 1,600 clinicians, including psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, social workers and professional counselors, in addition to another 300 support staff. This marks an almost 10 percent increase to the more than 20,000 existing mental health workers at the VHA.
Still, there is concern that this may not fix the extended wait times for veterans. These discrepancies originated with the VHA’s inability to accurately collect and analyze data. A working group has been established to address the problem and develop a new system for tracking these benchmarks.

Changes Promised

“Getting our veterans timely mental health care can quite frankly often be the difference between life and death. It’s the critical period, not unlike the ‘golden hour’ immediately after a traumatic physical injury,” Murray said.
VA Under Secretary for Health, Robert Petzel, assures that the VHA is moving quickly to make changes.

Be careful of what your resume may not say about you

When I retired from the Army I was well prepared, so I thought. I had a resume' that I thought was my ticket to a new job and and I had learned from the Transition Assistance Program on Fort Lewis techniques for interviewing. After all I was

"Highly organized with an ability to manage multiple projects, tasks and priorities effectively and in a timely manner.  Strong work ethic with outstanding communication and follow-through skills."

I would soon learn that it was not what my resume' told employers about me but what my resume' did not tell employers about me that hindered my job hunt. While I was at Fort Lewis I submitted 45 resumes both in the civilian workplace and the federal workforce (Joint Base Lewis McChord) I started submitting resumes early. I retired on 31 March 2011 and my job search started in August 2010, I kept a Excel spread sheet that showed the company name, where I found the opening (USA Jobs, Craigslist, etc.) when the closing date was, when I applied, how I applied (email or "snail mail" or in person), what documents I provided (cover letter and DD214), and if or when I was contacted and by whom.

Of all the positions I applied for I received one call back and that was for a security officer position at the VA hospital in Lakewood. I was needless to say, very dismayed because I thought that I had the qualities that employers were looking for: loyalty having served for over 21 years in the military; a track record of success at multiple levels of leadership; education I had a Bachelor Degree in Psychology from Saint Martin's University; but most of all I was a veteran who had deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to serve our nation. All of this would not even get me a minimum wage job.

Leadership and Supervision:  A superior leader with demonstrated performance in high-pressure environments.  Earned a solid reputation for improving organizational performance through hands-on training and a leadership approach that emphasized decision-making through active listening.

·         Superbly managed and motivated as many as 166 personnel; renowned for firm, yet compassionate mentorship. 

·         Key player in the planning and execution of four successful Company-sized operations in the Shah Wali Khot district and three operations in the Arghandab River Valley.

·         Taught third-year military science students for two years at Boise State University; developed class syllabi that was approved by the Department of Social Sciences Chair and is still in use.

Problem-Solving and Analysis:  Consistently implements keen analytical abilities and a proven team-based work dynamic with a systems-oriented approach to facilitate efficient and effective solutions.  A critical thinker open to alternative views to optimize decision-making.

·         Authored and implemented Standard Operating Procedures for a Stryker Company consisting of 166 personnel and $60M+ in equipment.

·         Excels at proactively identifying errors and recommending cost-effective solutions on site. 

Selected Military Training:  Basic Rifleman's Course; Military Skier Course; Basic Forward Observers Course; Squad Leaders Basic Course; Marine Corps Scout Sniper Course; Health and Safety Training for Hazardous Material Waste Operations and Emergency Response; Helicopter Rope Suspension Training / Safety Insertion Officer Course / Rappel Master; Basic Security Guard Course; Maritime Tactics / Close Quarter Battle Course; Introduction to Networks / Computer Hardware; Air Assault School; Warrior Leaders Course; Advanced Leaders Course; Army Safety Program Management; Senior Leaders Course; Instructor Training Course; Combat Lifesaver Course

SELECTED  AWARDS

Bronze Star with "Valor" Device; Bronze Star Medal; Meritorious Service Medal (x2); Army Commendation Medal with "Valor" Device; Army Commendation Medal (x4); Army Achievement Medal (x2); Navy Achievement Medals (x2); Combat Action Ribbon (Marine Corps)

These are actual bullets and areas of emphasis that are are my first resume' I ended up scrapping this resume after moving to Boise, Idaho and talking with a representative from the Boise Department of Labor. Ok, I am getting a little ahead of myself, I finally moved to Boise, Idaho and thought for sure that a very pro-military community here would be my best bet for getting a job. Well still no luck and I took a job making $4.25 an hour (VA work study position). I was very upset and felt something must be wrong or I was just not getting it. Where I was working (the Boise Vet Center) a representative from the Department of Labor came in to talk with veterans about employment opportunities and I showed him my resume. He looked over and advised me to down play my military service and especially my combat time. I felt like I was hit in the face, because I felt like my service did not matter and that it should be something I am ashamed of. I could not do that, so I re-wrote my resume and submitted it to several police agencies, Ada County and Canyon County no return call. I was not going to settle for a minimum wage job nor was I going to settle for a job I did not like doing. I was receiving a retirement stipend so I was not bad off.

What I learned was employers are not afraid of what you have done in the military but what they perceive you may suffer from. The biggest hindrance is what the media has put out there about us veterans. People think that we are "powder kegs" or that we suffer from PTSD and they don't want to hire us. Hire a Vet has started here in Idaho I have not looked into the statistics of how it is working but it really seems like a lot of talk.

I am currently a graduate student at the University of Southern California in Social Work and when I graduate I will help veterans here in Boise. I volunteer at the Boise Rescue Mission in the Veteran Mentor Program helping as a volunteer case manager. I will continue to look for jobs that take me out of this area even though it really depresses me because I bought a house here and decided four years ago that I wanted to retire here. Unfortunately I can't find jobs that will allow me to pursue my passion, helping our veterans. The company that I work for currently as a mental health specialist has been so supportive and I am glad that I found them. Riverside Rehab., in Garden City is by far the best organization I have had the pleasure to work with as a civilian, but more on that later.

I would love to hear about your job seeking endeavors, please contact me and I will post them on here. I would love to hear your story's good or bad and how you handled them.

1-17: A year in the life - and much death

CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA; The Associated Press • Published June 01, 2010   

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan - It was Aug. 10, 2009, in the Arghandab River Valley, a hot and dusty day full of unknowns. 

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2010/06/01/1256597/1-17-a-year-in-the-life-and-much.html#storylink=cpy

An American battalion was swapping in with a Canadian garrison. As the Stryker troop carrier rumbled toward the riverside orchards, a Canadian soldier warned 1st Lt. Vic Cortese, 24, of East Quogue, New York: “We don’t go in there.”

The American troops clambered out of the Stryker’s cramped confines into the raw sunlight. The soldiers spread out, started walking.

Less than 20 minutes later, snap, snap, snap in the air. A Taliban ambush. Cortese’s first firefight, and he went numb.

“For a split second, I was like: ‘Oh man!’” he recalled. Then training took command. He pushed against the earth, lifted his M-4 rifle and pulled the trigger.

• Twenty-two men in the U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of 800 died in a yearlong Afghan tour ending this summer. Most were killed last year in the Arghandab, a gateway to the southern city of Kandahar. About 70 were injured, all but two in bomb blasts.

The death toll was one of the highest in the Afghan war, and the tough fight in the Arghandab drew the attention of America’s leaders. President Barack Obama was photographed saluting the coffin of one of the soldiers on arrival in the United States. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told soldiers at their base in March that their efforts had helped push back the Taliban.

However, the battalion failed to dislodge insurgent cells entirely. A similar outcome is emerging in the southern town of Marjah after a bigger operation led by U.S. Marines in February. An even larger campaign is unfolding in Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital.

The battalion’s story is an extreme example of the challenges American soldiers face in Afghanistan.

The battalion is part of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which originally trained for urban combat in Iraq. But the mission changed in the final months of training, and the brigade’s 130 Arabic students took a crash course in Pashto, the language of Afghanistan’s largest ethnic community.

The battalion’s Stryker vehicles, prized for their speed and mobility, were making their debut in the Afghan war. But they could not operate in rough terrain where soldiers had to get around on foot.

The timing was bad; August is the height of Afghanistan’s fighting season.

Perhaps most treacherous of all, the battalion had very little intelligence. The soldiers didn’t know it, but they faced an entrenched enemy willing to stand and fight for a sliver of territory vital to the Taliban’s goal of seizing Kandahar. They needed more manpower.

Before dawn Aug. 7, the battalion rolled out of Kandahar to Forward Operating Base Frontenac, just northwest of the Arghandab.

A “perfect storm” awaited, said Lt. Col. Jonathan Neumann, the battalion commander, from the tiny town of Baker, Mont.

• Spc. Troy O. Tom was the first. A 21-year-old Navajo from Shiprock, N.M., he smiled serenely through tough camp training and told friends he turned down scholarships to serve his country. On Aug. 18, an explosive on a footbridge killed him.

Within five minutes, Pfc. Jonathan C. Yanney, 20, of Litchfield, Minn., died the same way. Soldiers say he stopped, stooped to adjust his heavy backpack, and took his last step.

Fear of more attacks delayed the search for the bodies. The next day, a bomb struck a convoy. The shock wave thumped 1st Lt. Kyle Hovatter of Tallahassee, Fla., in the face – “like a ton of bricks,” he said. Soldiers spotted a dozen muzzle flashes in the undergrowth. Sixteen Strykers unloaded 50-caliber machine gunfire and other ordnance. Helicopters flew low, unleashing at least 100 rockets.

The barrage subsided, and the Americans found Tom and Yanney.

• In photographs, Capt. John L. Hallett III of Concord, Calif., resembles a diffident schoolboy, his ears poking out awkwardly.

Once he visited Afghan police and balked at his hosts’ yogurt drink in a communal bowl. They gave him a glass. Too polite to decline, he held it for the entire meeting and dumped it in the bowl when nobody was looking.

CPT John Hallett A Co Commander KIA 25 Aug

SPC Dennis WIlliams KIA 25 Aug

On Aug. 25, an IED in a culvert flipped a Stryker, killing 30-year-old Hallett and three others. Six days later, more deaths. A medic tried to resuscitate a soldier who lost limbs, then announced it was over. 1st Sgt. Charles Burrow ordered the medic to continue until the helicopter arrived for the flight that would carry the dead man away. He didn’t want to give up.

After the evacuation, a void settled inside Burrow. It was as though there was nothing left to do. He turned to the Protestant chaplain, Capt. Gary Lewis, who arrived to counsel the soldiers.

“Chaplain, be quick. I’m sending these guys right back out. I don’t want them dwelling on it right now,” Lewis remembers Burrow saying.

Again and again, the battalion tried to close out grief. Focus on the task. Look ahead, not back. Each time a soldier died, the base flag flew at half-staff, but only for a few hours. Death became normal, a jarring routine. It meant loss; it meant everyone else was still alive.

• There are versions of what Staff Sgt. Michael Brown, 27, said when a mine severed his right foot on Oct. 15. It’s part of Alpha Company lore. It was either “Man, this is really going to affect my jump shot” or “This is going to affect my golf swing” or “That was my accelerator foot.”

Always upbeat, Brown stayed in character. A medic tied a tourniquet. “Doc, is that tight enough?” inquired Brown of Staten Island, N.Y. The pain floated away with the morphine.

Life could end anytime. In the early days, soldiers exhaled in relief every time a boot sank harmlessly into the earth.

“Every step is, ‘When? When? When? When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen?’” said Alpha’s 1st Sgt. Gene Hicks, 39, of Tacoma, a former Marine who will retire and move to Boise.

CPT Bushatz XO, me 1SG, CPT Michael Kovalsky CO, and LT Chris Tran FSO
This photo was taken after a very long operation in the Arghandab Valley.

And then, he said, it would be: “Boom! It just happened.”

U.S. commanders were fighting an estimated 200 or more Taliban who always removed their dead.

One platoon adopted a dog, named Staff Sgt. Bear. One night, Bear barked at the darkness. A daytime search unearthed an IED.

• Oct. 27: The boom was muffled, possibly because the IED hit square underneath the Stryker.

But the radio call was clear and final. Eight KIA, killed in action. Seven Charlie Company soldiers and an Afghan interpreter. The blast had driven the armor plate under the Stryker through the roof, peeling it off like a can opener.

A firefight erupted. Afterward, troops found a man’s corpse and drag marks, probably an attempt by insurgents to remove the body. A young boy sobbed nearby. He told an interpreter that the man was his uncle and brought him along as a human shield.

“He thought you wouldn’t shoot us,” the boy said.

• Grousing is common in any army, but a deeper resentment brewed in the 1-17. In November, brigade chief Col. Harry Tunnell replaced Capt. Joel Kassulke of Charlie Company, which had suffered the most deaths – 12 men – of the four companies.

The soldiers fumed. They thought the captain was made a scapegoat.

In December, the battalion took a new mission to secure area highways. Fighting had ebbed, and a unit from the 82nd Airborne Division took over most of the Arghandab. Some 1-17 soldiers were emotional – they thought they were winning, and felt defeat at leaving.

A month later, an Army Times newspaper article included assertions by Charlie Company junior leaders that they had not trained adequately for the Afghan mission, and that the battalion had not focused enough on civilian concerns.

Neumann said civil development was hardly the first option in a heavy combat zone, but acknowledged he could have done more to convey command thinking down the chain. As for Kassulke’s transfer, he said, the brigade command believed the man and the company were close to a “breaking point” and needed change.

• With the deployment nearly over, Sgt. Richard Thibeault of Bravo Company remembered Aug. 10, 2009, when he and Cortese first tasted combat. A bullet struck Thibeault’s ceramic chest plate but did not penetrate. He went somewhere else: a dream, a bubble.

“It knocked me back a couple of steps and I hit the ground,” he said. “It was like hearing everything through a can, being way off. It was like being five miles away and hearing gunfire. Everything was real faint, but I was right there in the middle of it.”

Thibeault crawled, and a soldier grabbed him by the collar. “I got up there behind the wall … and said, ‘Hey man, I got shot,’” Thibeault recalled. “He looked and he said, ‘No, you didn’t.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I was.’ He was, ‘No, you didn’t. Start firing.’”

The soldier shoved his hand under Thibeault’s vest and yanked it out. No blood.

Thibeault, 22, of Cornelia, Ga., got a tattoo of a crosshairs with a wisp of smoke where the bullet would have entered.

At Frontenac today, photographs of the dead line the corridor in the headquarters. A concrete memorial bears their names.

Our Battalion Memorial on FOB Frontenac

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2010/06/01/1256597/1-17-a-year-in-the-life-and-much.html#storylink=cpy

SVA Names For-Profit Schools with Revoked Charters

Do your homework before applying to any school!!!!

WASHINGTON, DC –Today, Student Veterans of America (SVA) published a list of 26 for-profit institutions whose SVA charters had been revoked. The removal of SVA chapters resulted from a routine, annual review of all chapters.
"SVA chapters must be established and led by student veterans. Student veteran organizations in development, or created by university administrators, defeats the fundamental spirit of the SVA chapter,” said Michael Dakduk, Executive Director of Student Veterans of America. "In addition to being a peer support group, SVA chapters exist as campus and community based advocacy organizations. It appears that some for-profit schools do not understand our model, or worse –they understand our model and they choose to exploit it for personal gain.” This is important because:
1) it defrauds veterans seeking advice from SVA’s student leaders;
2) it deters veterans who would otherwise form chapters at these campuses;
3) it misrepresents these chapters as being a point of contact for veterans seeking out their peers who can help them with transition issues and introduce them to a community of individuals that share similar experiences;
4) it undermines the legitimacy and reputation of SVA.
Many military and veteran-friendly school lists cite having a SVA chapter as a criterion for becoming ‘veteran-friendly’. The term ‘military-friendly’, or ‘veteran-friendly’,as it relates to academic institutions is ill-defined.
"I am concerned that certain for-profit schools may be taking advantage of the SVA brand to legitimize their programs. This may be an example of certain schools establishing fake SVA chapters to appear on a military-friendly list. By being featured on these lists, those schools can then advertise their programs as accommodating to veterans –although the term military and veteran friendly lacks any real definition. This is an extreme example of misrepresentation. There is a pattern of impropriety among certain for-profit institutions of higher learning.”
Facts:
35 chapters at for-profit schools are currently under review with SVA, representing 8% of SVA’s chapter base.
All chapters submit a statement of understanding – in part, it states the following:
I attest that my organization is officially recognized as a student organization at an institution of higher education.
I attest that my organization’s primary mission is aimed at the general welfare of student veterans who are enrolled or intend on enrolling at an institution of higher education.
I give authority to SVA to verify my organization’s eligibility for chapter affiliation.
I understand that SVA reserves the right to revoke chapter membership at any time. I also understand that my organization may remove our affiliation with SVA at any time.

SCHOOL LIST OF REVOKED CHAPTERS
ALLIED AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

ANTHEM COLLEGE-ONLINE
ARGOSY UNIVERSITY-ONLINE
ARGOSY UNIVERSITY-SAN BERNARDINO
ART INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA-ORANGE COUNTY
ART INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA-SACRAMENTO
ART INSTITUTE OF MICHIGAN
ART INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK CITY
ART INSTITUTE OF PITTSBURGH
ART INSTITUTE OF PITTSBURGH-ONLINE
ART INSTITUTE OF WASHINGTON
ART INSTITUTES INTERNATIONAL-KANSAS CITY
ASHWORTH COLLEGE
BROWN MACKIE COLLEGE-AKRON
DEVRY UNIVERSITY-ORLANDO SOUTH
ECPI COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY-INNSBROOK
ECPI COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY-RALEIGH
ECPI COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY-RICHMOND
EX'PRESSION COLLEGE FOR DIGITAL ARTS
FASHION INSTITUTE OF DESIGN & MERCHANDISING
ITT TECHNICAL INSTITUTE-SOUTH BEND
ITT TECHNICAL INSTITUTE-SPRINGFIELD
ITT TECHNICAL INSTITUTE-STRONGSVILLE
MEDICAL CAREERS INSTITUTE
SOUTH UNIVERSITY-ALABAMA
SOUTH UNIVERSITY-GEORGIA

VA mental health system sharply denounced at hearing

I think the need for a "breath of fresh air" throughout much of the VA staff and mental health providers is warrented. It also boggles my mind that there are 1,500 vacancies with a soon to be additional 1,600. Why is the VA not looking at those seperating (retiring) from the military train them and put them to work? This just really annoyes me because this is the where I want to work and where I want to help veterans but there is no availale information about it. It is like hitting your head against the wall.... 

By Steve Vogel, Published: April 25 | Updated: Monday, April 23, 10:00 PMThe Washington Post

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ mental-health care system suffers from a culture where managers give more importance to meeting meaningless performance goals than helping veterans, according to testimony before a Senate committee Wednesday. The hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs followed the release of an inspector general’s report Monday that found the VA has greatly overstated how quickly it provides mental-health care for veterans.

“They need a culture change,” Linda Halliday, the VA’s assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations, told the committee. “They need to hold facility directors accountable for integrity of the data.” VA facilities used practices that “greatly distorted” the actual waiting time for appointments, Halliday said, enabling the department to make claims that 95 percent of first-time patients seeking mental-health care received an evaluation within 14 days when, in reality, fewer than half were seen in that time. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairman of the committee, described the findings as showing a “rampant gaming of the system.” Nicholas Tolentino, a former mental health administrative officer at the VA Medical Center in Manchester, N.H., told the committee that managers at the facility pressed the staff to develop ways to see as many veterans as possible while providing the most minimal mental-health services possible.
“The plan that was ultimately developed gamed the system so that the facility met performance requirements but utterly failed our veterans,” said Tolentino, a former Navy corpsman who went to work at the Manchester facility in 2009.
One manager directed the staff to focus only on the immediate reason for an appointment and not to ask the veteran about any other problems because “we don’t want to know or we’ll have to treat it,” according to Tolentino.
“VA is failing to meet its own mandates for timeliness and instead is finding ways to make the data look like they are complying,” said Murray, who requested the report.
“It’s mind-boggling,” said Sen. Scott Brown, (R-Mass.), who raised concerns that the long waits that veterans seeking mental-health services face leaves them at heightened risk for suicide.
“We fully embrace that our performance measures need to be revised,” William Schoenhard, deputy under secretary for health for operations and management, told the committee.
The data was often based on available appointments, rather than the patient’s clinical needs, according to the inspector general’s office. If the patient was given an appointment two months later because of a lack of openings, the veteran would still be recorded as having been seen within two weeks of the desired date.
The office issued reports in 2005 and 2007 raising similar concerns that the VA was using faulty data to calculate wait times.
“This has been an issue for many years and hasn’t been resolved,” John Daigh Jr., assistant inspector general for health-care inspections, told the committee.
Under pressure to reduce waiting times for veterans, the VA announced last week that it plans to hire 1,600 mental-health workers, an increase of more than 9 percent.
But the VA already has about 1,500 vacancies in mental-health specialties, positions that have been hard to fill given better pay in the private sector. “How are you going to ensure that 1,600 positions . . . don’t become 1,600 vacancies?” Murray asked.
Schoenhard said the department is studying ways to better recruit and retain mental-health professionals.
“In the interim, you have soldiers who are killing themselves,” Brown said.
Tolentino, who said his complaints “largely fell on deaf ears,” resigned from the Manchester facility in December.
“Ultimately, I could not continue to work at a facility where the well-being of our patients seemed secondary to making the numbers look good,” he said.