VA Suicide Hotline

Suicide hotline serves as beacon to veterans
Chris Swingle Staff writer

Calls are flooding the Canandaigua-based suicide prevention hotline created for veterans and their loved ones — at a rate of about 135 calls per day.The national hotline, established by the Canandaigua Veterans Affairs Medical Center on July 25, fielded 12,322 calls in its first three months, one-fourth from veterans, prompting the center to boost its staffing by a third.

Nearly 200 callers have needed immediate response because they talked of suicide and had a gun or other means nearby, or had already ingested pills, said Janet Kemp, the V.A.'s national suicide prevention coordinator.The Department of Veterans Affairs launched the hotline at a time when national reports revealed troubling deficiencies in care for veterans.

Investigative media reports in February cited substandard care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Then two federal reports, in July and September, criticized both mental and physical health care for veterans and called for sweeping changes. Among other reforms, the Department of Defense was urged to address its acute shortage of mental health clinicians.

The V.A. is the largest provider of mental health care in the nation. More than 9,000 mental health professionals, backed by primary care physicians and other health professionals in every V.A. medical center and outpatient clinic, provide care to about 1 million veterans each year.

About $3 billion will be spent on mental health services this year by the V.A. Officials were not able last week to provide a budget figure for the Canandaigua hotline.When the critical media reports were released, the hotline was already in the works but its heavy use highlights the need for such services.Indeed, at least 283 combat veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and the end of 2005 took their own lives, according to preliminary V.A. research obtained by The Associated Press. The rate is similar to the suicide rate among nonveterans, but that time period doesn't include many veterans who served or are serving in Iraq."A specialized service is a very good thing," said Jim Vanderpool of Rochester, who served in the Army in Korea and is commander of Patchen-Briggs Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 307. "Life's burdens are tough enough for everybody. You add the carnage of war, it affects the individual psyche more."How it worksThe veterans' hotline is an offshoot of the long-standing national suicide hotline and doesn't have a separate phone number. Callers hear a recording inviting veterans or those calling in concern for a veteran to press 1. Those who do are transferred to the call center in Canandaigua, which now employs 35 people.

In addition to the hotline, the V.A. established a follow-up coordinator at each of the 153 V.A. medical centers nationwide to check in with every veteran who calls the suicide hotline and is willing to be contacted. Of the 10 area veterans who've accepted follow-up contact, seven served in Vietnam and three served in Iraq, said Lynn Abaied, a licensed social worker hired by the Canandaigua V.A. to provide those follow-ups in the Rochester-Canandaigua region."All of them are in treatment, either for PTSD — post-traumatic stress disorder — or major depression," said Abaied. Levels of risk for service members who have yet to return home is not yet known, but previous studies have found that combat trauma elevates suicide risk.Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and problem drinking can double or triple a person's risk, yet the rate of suicide among people with these conditions is still quite low, said Dr. Ira Katz, the V.A.'s deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health.Vietnam veterans were at higher risk for suicide for up to five years after that war, but veterans of the first Gulf War weren't found to be at any different risk for suicide than the public overall, said Kerry L. Knox, an associate professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center who this year became director of suicide research efforts at the Canandaigua V.A.Canandaigua's facility is one of three V.A. centers in the nation designated "centers of excellence" to research veterans' mental health issues and share the findings in an effort to improve care throughout the V.A. system.

Too late for Jeffrey

A hotline and especially the follow-up for veterans are good ideas that should have started years ago, said Kevin Lucey of Belchertown, Mass., who filed suit in July against the Department of Veterans Affairs alleging wrongful death and medical malpractice. Lucey's son, Jeffrey Lucey, who'd enlisted in the Marine Reserves after graduating from high school, committed suicide June 22, 2004, at home, nearly a year after returning from Iraq. He was 23."It was too late for Jeff and it was too late for so many others," said Kevin Lucey, who with his wife, Joyce, spoke in Rochester in September at a screening of The Ground Truth, a documentary about service members' struggles after returning from Iraq. Follow-up care for suicidal veterans is critical, Lucey said Thursday by cell phone from his son's grave site, which he often visits. Jeff at first refused to go to the V.A. because of the stigma of admitting a mental health problem, said Lucey, who is a therapist. But the young veteran finally saw a local therapist who referred him to the V.A. hospital, where Jeff spent three days on suicide watch over Memorial Day weekend 2004. At home, days later, he was despondent but unwilling to return to the hospital, where he'd felt like a prisoner. His mother called the V.A., which told them for the first time of the Veterans Outreach Center in their area. Jeff met with a mental health counselor for three hours and was scheduled to be seen three times a week. On June 21, Jeff was in a rage and suicidal, his father said. They each talked to the veterans center by phone and Jeff calmed down. For the second time in a week, the 5-foot-10, 130-pound Jeff asked to sit on his father's lap, said Lucey. They rocked for 45 minutes. Jeff seemed OK the next day when his father went to work. After work, Lucey found that Jeff had hung himself in the cellar.

'Everybody's business'

Today, if a veteran calls the new suicide hotline in imminent crisis, the hotline workers summon community emergency responders. And training has been instituted for V.A. employees at all levels, including those who deliver trays of food or empty the trash, so workers can recognize signs of suicide and speak up. If someone says he'd be better off dead or that you won't have to worry about him much longer because he won't be around, nobody should ignore that, said Kemp, who's also associate director of education and training for the suicide research center of excellence.People should say, "Are you serious about that? Do you need help?" said Kemp. "People will tell you the answers if you ask the questions.""Suicide is everybody's business," said Kemp. Training materials are going to all V.A. staff and community partners this week.The hotline in Canandaigua is a partnership of the V.A. and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the federal agency that for years has managed the federal suicide hotline. Special service for veterans as well as the hotline number are supposed to be widely publicized at veterans centers, in publications and online, but still some people don't know the hotline exists."I never heard of it," Eddie Israel, a World War II Air Force veteran, said last week while volunteering at the Veterans Outreach Center's computer resource center in Rochester. He gets care through the V.A. and doesn't remember seeing or hearing anything there, either. Patty Gilg of York, Livingston County, said her son, Kyle, seems to be doing well since returning home in August, but his Marine unit suffered many injuries and casualties in Iraq. Gilg roundly approves of the new suicide hotline for veterans."We definitely need to take care of them."

CSWINGLE @ DemocratandChronicle.com ------------------------- Larry Scott --