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Better VA care sought for suicidal vets

An Iraq war veteran whose life fell apart after several friends died in combat and others — including his brother — killed themselves told a Senate committee that the Veterans Affairs Department’s suicide prevention programs were “not beneficial at all to me.”

Testifying Wednesday before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Daniel Hanson, who deployed to Iraq in 2004 with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, said he sought VA help after his brother Travis, who had been undergoing treatment at a VA medical center, hung himself in 2007.

Crying as he spoke, Hanson said he sought help because “I really went off the deep end,” doing drugs and drinking every day as his marriage crumbled.

Hanson said he finished an outpatient program at the VA Medical Center in Saint Cloud, Minn., but attempted suicide about a month later, waking up from an overdose of prescription drugs to find himself in a psychiatric ward at the hospital on a 72-hour hold.

After his discharge, “there was almost no follow-up,” he told the committee. He quickly returned to using drugs and alcohol and feeling like he wanted to die.

“I was pretty much a monster,” he said.

Ultimately, he got into the Minnesota Teen Challenge, a faith-based residential drug and alcohol treatment program for teens and adults, which lasted for about a year and helped him change his life.

“I wanted to heal myself before my kids found out what a loser their dad was,” he said.

Hanson testified at a hearing that focused on what can be done to improve mental health programs for veterans.

Committee chairman Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, cited the “heartbreaking” statistic that an average of 18 veterans kill themselves each day.

Hanson had some suggestions.

‘Just another number’

The VA system seems uncaring, he said. “There was never any accountability in my experiences with the VA system. If I missed appointments, or just stopped calling altogether, it did not seem to really matter to anyone,” he said. “I felt like I was just another number going through the revolving door of head doctors who had to talk to me.”

VA also needs long-term treatment options, Hanson said.

“The problems that I picked up over the years of bad living were not going to go away in a matter of months,” he said. “A program that lasts for a year or more is much more likely to help a person, and help them not just cope with their problems but get rid of them altogether.”

Longer-term care also was recommended by another witness at the hearing, Dr. M. David Rudd, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science at the University of Utah and scientific director of the university’s national Center for Veterans Studies.

“This is not a short-term issue,” Rudd said. “Despite the availability of effective treatment, it is important to remember that not only will many of our veterans face acute problems, [but] a large percentage will struggle for many years requiring intensive and enduring care.”

Rudd said he also would like to see VA mental health services expand beyond clinics and Veterans Centers to places such as college campuses. “VA will need to go to where the veterans are in order to reach the 70 percent hesitant to seek care,” Rudd said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a committee member, suggested VA take a wider look at mental health issues by considering the relationship between employment woes and readjustment problems.

“We have seen veterans coming home with PTSD and other mental health challenges having tremendous difficulty finding employment,” she said.

Veterans are encouraged to get treatment from VA “but following that treatment, they don’t receive aftercare and counseling to help them readjust,” she said. “This means that often many months after their return, veterans still find themselves underemployed or unemployed with very few options.”

Akaka said the committee is considering all options. “We have made a promise to care for the invisible wounds of veterans, and we must be vigilant in ensuring we keep that promise,” he said.