President Barack Obama’s mishandling of the Department of Veterans Affairs had been historically bad.
Now, it’s bordering on criminal negligence.
Outrageous new reports show that more than one-third of calls to a suicide hotline set up for troubled veterans are not being answered by front-line staffers because of poor work habits and other problems at the VA, according to the hotline’s former director.
You read that right. The Obama administration is ignoring desperate calls for help from thousands of suicidal veterans.
This can’t be blamed on funding or staffing issues, either. This is purely the fault of poor leadership. Some hotline workers handle fewer than five calls per day and leave before their shifts end, even as crisis calls have increased sharply in recent years, said Greg Hughes, the former director of the VA’s Veterans Crisis Line. Hughes said in an internal email that some crisis line staffers “spend very little time on the phone or engaged in assigned productive activity.” Coverage at the crisis line suffers “because we have staff who routinely request to leave early,” he said.
An average of 35 to 40 percent of crisis calls received in May were ignored, and rolled over to back-up centers where workers have less training to deal with veterans’ problems, said Hughes, who left his post in June, weeks after sending the emails.
The House on Monday unanimously approved a bill requiring the VA to ensure that all telephone calls, text messages, and other communications received by the crisis line are answered in a timely manner by an appropriately qualified person.
Iowa Rep. David Young, the bill’s sponsor, said a veteran in his district told him he repeatedly received a busy signal when he called the crisis line this spring. The man later got help from a friend, but “this hotline let him down,” Young said. “A veteran in need cannot wait for help, and any incident where a veteran has trouble with the Veterans Crisis Line is simply unacceptable.”
The VA said Monday it is increasing staff at the New York-based hotline and opening a new hub in Atlanta. The agency also pledged to continue efforts to improve training, as it responds to a report by an internal watchdog that said crisis calls are routinely allowed to go into voicemail and callers do not always receive immediate assistance.
David Shulkin, the VA’s undersecretary for health, called veterans’ suicide a public health crisis and said suicide prevention is a top priority at VA. An estimated 20 veterans commit suicide every day; the vast majority were not connected to VA care in the last year of their lives, Shulkin said.
The crisis line dispatched emergency responders an average of 30 times a day last year and made 80,000 referrals to suicide prevention coordinators, he said.
“We are saving thousands of lives. But we will not rest as long as there are veterans who remain at risk,” Shulkin said in a statement.
Approval of the House bill follows a February report by the VA’s office of inspector general indicating that about 1 in 6 calls are redirected to backup centers when the crisis line is overloaded. Calls went to voicemail at some backup centers, including at least one center where staffers apparently were unaware there was a voicemail system, the report said.
The bill now goes to the Senate.
The crisis hotline received more than 500,000 calls last year, 50 times the number it received in 2007, the hotline’s first year of operation.
The toll-free hotline number is 800-273-8255.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
I remember the loud mouth drill instructors telling us that we will have the best medical care because we joined the service. Like most of our officials. they lied.
I REMEMBER HEARING THE SAME TYPE OF COMMENT! ” The navy has the best doctors in the world ” Well they must be loaning them to some third world country??? I saw 50 navy doctors for my disability caused by the Navy people in charge and none of these best doctors were able to diagnose or treat my disability just like President J.F.Kennedy who had the same condition???
What I didn’t know until recently is, that while in the Navy, Administrative officers are required to REMOVE all records that could be used to prove a Veteran’s claim for compensation and Medical care!!! With the corruption in the VA and the Justice System a Veteran in need has no chance to receive the help he needs unless he is SUPER RICH and can pay for the help he needs out of his own pocket??? In addition any Veteran applying for care at the VA has to learn about the medical care provide and proper procedures concerning his specific condition??? Directors and other personnel are paid BONUSES for every veteran they can prevent from receiving BENEFITS,one way or another,( if you get my meaning )??? The figures comparing the number of vet’s killed in service with the number who expire in VA hospital’s and under VA care might be more revealing as to the proper care they receive from the VA???
It is probably not the drill leaders, etc., who were lying. It is the ones in control in Washington, DC. NOT the military as whole. I do agree, our veterans are not treated the way they deserve after serving our country.
I agree
My granddaughter don’t have a father because this sorry people.
I am so sorry for your loss. When President Trump takes office I think everything will be much better– especially for the Vets.
I am so sorry for your loss. When President Trump takes office everything will be better– ESP for the Vets.
FOR-GET-ABOUT-IT! This is President Ovomit’s VA system. American Veterans are not exactly his favored people. The only uniform he ever wore was his Islamic drapery and head-wrap during the 1980’s. Lots of photographs of him dressed in those garments..
YOU ARE RIGHT BECAUSE THIS PILE OF STINKING MONKEY NUTS HAS SAID OVER AND OVER THAT AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION,,HE HAS ALLOWED RADICAL MUSLIMS INTO OUR COUNTRY TO REPLACE OUR CONSTITUTION WITH SHARIA LAW .HE WILL SEND TAX DOLLARS TO HIS MUSLIM BROTHERS WHILE 300,000 VETERANS HAVE DIED WEIGTING FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT,,AMERICA WILL HAVE NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM,PROSPERITY,AND EQUAL JUSTICE FOR EVERY AMERICAN ..IT’S TIME TO TAKE AMERICA BACK AND PUT KILLARY INTO HER FAVORITE PANTS SUIT ,,STIPES /.
You got that right, Marvin. Ovomit…good name…is the one of the LAST people that I would say has the right to be called Chief of our armed forces. Like Benghazi he’s out golfing while the vets die.
This POS should be taken out of the WH in handcuffs and tried for being a serial murderer. Because of him 100’s of good men and women have died for no reason other than he doesn’t care and doing something is to much of an inconvenience to him and might cut into his golf time.
And his supporters inhisvAdm!
Hey….how about taking him to the gallows, good place to start, right?
This upsets me to no end. Oh, it’s ok for them to use our Soldiers on the field. These wonderful men deserve the best health care. I worked at a hospital and a new employee from VA told me what they would feed them at lunch time, bare minimal. Sad that when they come home they are treated like they are.
How dare you not answer the phone for people in crisis. My husband has been in pain ever since the military put him out years ago because he blew out his knees. It drove him to be an alcoholic. We spent the first eight years of our brand new marriage in the bottom of a bottle – he was very deep into several bottles of whiskey and ibuprofen a day because of the pain and that was all the damn idiots wanted to give him. Finally when he tried to stop he started having seizures and his very first one was a grand mal and could have killed both of us because he was driving – fortunately we had just stopped for gas. In 2009 he broke his leg and had to have a rod put in it. Between the idiot that put it in and the VA, he had numerous x-rays on a leg that had him in excruciating pain all the time. In April of this year, the leg finally proved to be infected – after three surgeries in the knee to stop the infected pus from coming out an MRI (that he had been begging for for years) finally proved that the leg was infected – all the way from the hip to the knee. The VA sent him to Temple for a cortisone shot. My father spent 30 years in the military and didn’t even trust them to repair his roof after Katrina came through. The VA is not there for the vet – they do the cheapest fix for the least amount of money and have more and more veterans with more and more horrific problems that they don’t want to fix because we are having more and more stupid wars and they are only in the whole show to paste a bandage on it. The VA is a joke.
The best way to fix this mess is to clean house. Hillary Clinton is likely to keep the same rotten leadership in place or replace them with people equally incompetent. It’s time to give our veterans hope. It’s Trump time.
The USA USE OUR VETERANS TO FIGHT WARS BUT ABUSE THEM WHEN THEY RETURN HOME. It is absolutely deplorable and should not be tolerated. Those do nothing FAT ASSES in Washington DC are currently riding high on the gravy train. However, that will soon change when DONALD TRUMP IS ELECTED AS OUR NEXT POTUS IN 2016.
I agree, I’m a veteran and I’m so fed up,sick & tired of being a NO CLASS CITIZEN in our own country, I was drafted, got sworn into the Naval reserves on 3/29/1972, was ordered to go back finish up my final month of my Senior year of high school, which I did do, on 6/27/1972 I was sworn into the Navy for active duty, I have given over 40 years of faithful, loyal,dedicated, gung ho, stars & stripes years of my life of service and working for our country in the Naval reserves, the Navy, been on 7 overseas cruises, my ship was fired upon in 1973 in the Med, we were on wartime cruising. On my second ship in 1975 we were off the coast of Viet Nam when it fell, again in wartime cruising. I served on shore duty in Pearl Harbor & San Diego, did a tour of duty in the Philippines where two of my three children were born.
I worked for MCRD San Diego, NAS Miramar San Diego, AMARG at Davis-Monthan AFB in Loser City Tucson, Mexizona. I bought my military time back so I could retire, I was told that under the FERS system that I would receive 75% of what I was earning after taxes & deductions, I was lied to, stabbed in the back, slapped in the face and punished for nothing and all of that just so I can be a NO CLASS CITaiZEN, if that damned POS white trash B@&CH Hitlery Killery ROTTON Ayatollah Khoemeni Clinton becomes our next Figurehead, veterans & senior citizens will continue to be NO CLASS CITIZENS in our own country while we have these damned raghead Syrians & Iranian trouble makers getting everything they want on a solid gold platter have rights and we don’t. We had 8 years of a communist draft dodger named Bill Clinton in the White House, he invented the government shutdown, he is why I wound up in the SH@THOLE LOSER CITY TUCSON,MEXIZONA metro area with all of his wonderful defense cutbacks and base closures in CA,OR!WA,AK,CO,IL,IN,NJ,PA,NY,MA,RI,FL,TX,OK-that was his thanks to the majority of those states that voted for him, we barely have a Pacific fleet in our Navy because of him and his wonderful cutbacks, he planted the seeds for 9/11/2001 to happen. I’m selling everything I don’t want,don’t need right now and when that is done, I’m leaving our country and will live where the Senior citizen and elderly are respected and appreciated very much.
#TRUMP2016 #TRUMP2016
#TRUMP2016 #TRUMP2016
#TRUMP2016 TRUMP2016TRUMP2016TRUMP2016TRUMP2016
It’s an absolute travesty the way O’bozo the “Clown” treats our “Veterans” – of course what can be expected of a coward who never served our country.
He learned it from the wonderful anti military, anti Veterans media and those damned POS white trash Clinton’s and the anti war demonstrators who never wore a mi,Italy uniform at all. Remember we had 8 years of communist Bill Clinton in the White House, he committed high treason, protested AGAINIST the Viet Nam war in Great Britain while he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and was protected by none other than the late William Fulbright the late U.S.Senator of Arkansas.
Obama might have his interests with the citizens of another country. I saw a copy, in print of his bio, when he was writing for the Harvard Law Review. It was submitted by him and stated ” I was born in Kenya. ” His Presidency is over and he left the country a wreck. The Vets are suffering, SS is ending in 2034 and taxes are destroying the middle class. We know who Donald Trump is.
This “president” has done NOTHING to improve the conditions in our Veterans system….he’s too busy trying to build his fake “legacy”, playing golf and taking vacations to be concerned about the most important group of Americans in our country. It’s outrageous and is another subject Donald Trump needs to bring up at the next debate. What specifically will clinton do to take care of our Veterans????????
DID YOU REALLY EXPECT ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM THIS PIECE OF muslim PIG SHIT???? LIKE THE WANNA-BE-BUT-NEVER-WILL-BE QUEEN, HIS ONLY AIM IS TO HELP HIMSELF AND CONTINUE HIS DESTRUCTION OF THIS COUNTRY!!!! IF KILLORY GETS IN…. SHE WILL CONTINUE THE RAPE OF AMERICA AND AMERICANS….. YOU CANNOT EXPECT MORE FROM A CRIMINAL WHO TRULY BELONGS IN A JAIL CELL. CONGRESS….. GROW SOME BALLS….. DO YOUR JOB….. IMPEACH THE SON OF A WHORE!!!! I WOULD LOVE TO SEE FACES SLAPPED IN THE NEAR FUTURE!!! BUT, UNTIL CONGRESS GROWS THE BALLS NECESSARY TO PROTECT WE THE PEOPLE, THESE CRIMINALS WILL CONTINUE TO WALK THE GUTTERS OF PIGDOM!!! A VOTE FOR TRUMP IS A VOTE FOR WE THE PEOPLE…… A VOTE FOR KILLORY IS A VOTE FOR HER TO BE A MILLIONAIRE WITH HER SECRET BANK ACCOUNTS AND GRAND THEFT!!! THERE WAS A TIME WHEN CONGRESS PROTECTED WE THE PEOPLE….. NOW CONGRESS MOTTO IS COVER YOUR OWN ASS AND STEAL, STEAL, STEAL!!! WELL, THE muslim PIG IS DEMANDING A RAISE TO HIS PENSION….. AND IF CONGRESS VOTES IT IN…. BE ASSURED…. WE WILL MAKE SURE HE NEVER SERVES AGAIN!!! IT IS TIME WE THE PEOPLE TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK….. KICK THE muslim PIG TO THE GUTTER HE WAS BORN IN AND DESERVES TO LIVE WITH THE LYING, WANNA BUT NEVER WILL BE “QUEEN”!!!!!
The double whammy of this atrocity is this administration has also destroyed the healthcare system of the private sector! Obamacare is causing the deaths of Americans everyday, just as Veterans administration is leading to the deaths of those who have given their all to this country. The treatment is horrible on both fronts, there is a shortage of Drs., nurses, P.A.’s, assistants, technicians ,etc. fewer are getting into these fields because of the horrible handling of our medical system by this administration, the office workers are government employees & don’t care, the bureaurcrats have life long positions & face no consequences or loss of jobs.[name one who has been fired during all the scandals inflicted upon the American public]
This should not be any surprise to anyone, Obama would rather do away with our military so we are not harming his radical Islamic friends and Hillary just stated not long ago our VA is just fine…. A vote for Hillary is a vote more 4 more years of shithead Obama
pain can lead to addiction to opiate pain killers which can lead to death (when they are combined with alcohol or sleeping pills)
many of the newer psychiatric medicines increase risk of death
Wish I could be of assistance by recommending turmeric, ginger and dark chocolate, I discuss it with my patients often.
Many vets die from opiate overdose, the readers can get free Naloxone (narcan) training and a free kit from NY state at the various ATCs. You can also purchase the naloxone kit OTC in many states, and watch the video on u-tube.
The VA has to be taken down piece by piece and begin with the top as the old saying “The fish rots from the head down”! The new leader should have the drive and honesty of General Patton or Margaret Thacher and accept no political BS! A civil board made up of new and former patients that will have oversight and authority to fire if people are not performing !
I have this to say it is a traviey that the people that are so called leaders have done this to our Military,and what is so bad that a person that is Bidding to be over our Military and Veterans does not know that our country is not a Democracy it is a Constitutionl Republic this woman does not know what our country,is and she is wanting to be Comander Chief of our military what kind of person that would that.I’ve got this to say I’m no Doctor and I’ve never been in the Military I tried to join was turned down because of medical reasons, If any Miltary person in the Calhoun County Alabama needs some one to talk to I deal with a hard ship, I myself deals with one every second of my life I’m no Doctor but I will give you at least the time to talk to are at least answer your call it Hillbilly (256)453-8691 And Thanks for you alls Service,and May God bless everyone that has Served.
I believe welfare should be as hard to get as Veterans’ benefits. There would be a lot fewer people on welfare. My daughter is 90% disabled and my grandson 100% disabled due to Afghanistan. My daughter waited well over a year to see anybody at the VA about her medical issues. Even after she was seen by a medical doctor it took many, many more months for her to be seen by a psychiatrist to help her deal with PTSD. My grandson has also been lied to numerous times by VA employees. Sad that veterans should be treated that way.