Running head: VETERANS SUICIDE PREVENTION
A White Paper on Veterans Suicide Prevention
Sarah Pollock
Dixie State University
Nursing 4030-Nursing Policy and Ethics
In the US, suicide is the tenth most common cause of death accounting to nearly 40,000
deaths in 2012. Veterans attribute to one fifth of those suicide deaths. The government has tried
in the past to help with the amount of suicide rates in veterans by passing bills, but they have not
done enough to help these veterans. These men and women that go out and serve their country
and have very hard things to deal with mentally but do not have the resources to help them when
they get home, or they have to wait months at a time to receive the help that they need causing
them to commit suicide. Staffing is one of the biggest issues with VA because there are not
enough doctors to help them when they need them. A policy change in how to get more doctors
to help provide for these veterans needs to happen (Ashrafioun, Pigeon, Conner, Leong, & Oslin,
2016).
Suicide Prevention in Veterans
Background
Suicide rates in veterans has been on the rise ever since the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
An estimate of 22 veterans commit suicide every day. Veterans do not have access to health care,
psychiatric health, and some suffer from social isolation. Most veterans have to wait months to
see psychiatrists because their veteran benefits or the VA doctors do not have enough time to see
all of the veterans struggling with these issues (Leonard, 2015). On February 12, 2015 the Clay
Hunt SAV Act was passed into law. This law helps to make sure that there are resources for
veterans to be able to find online and in offices. It requires the veterans site to be updated every
90 days to make sure it has the most current information and to start a pilot program that has
community oriented peer support groups and an outreach team that is trained to help veterans
(H.R.203 - 114th Congress, 2015-2016).
Before the bill was passed, it had been swept under the rug, that many men and women
that came to the VA for help, had to wait months to receive help with their suicidal thoughts.
Almost every suicide had had a call to the VA or had a cry for help before the actual suicide
(Leonard, 2015). It was thought that most suicides had previous attempts, but in research they
have found that that is not the case. It is more reliable to go on the previous suicidal ideation
because they show signs and try to get help more often than thought before (Ashrafioun, Pigeon,
Conner, Leong, & Oslin, 2016). 77% of veterans that committed suicide had seen their doctor
within a year of the suicide and 45% of them had been in to see the doctor within a month of
their suicide (Denneson, Williams, Kaplan, Mcfarland, & Dobscha, 2016 ).
Policies Today
In 2015 President Obama signed a new act called the Clay Hunt SAV Act that helped to
get more benefits and recourses to veterans, but before this, there was not enough recourses
available for veterans. The bill was named after a young man named Clay Hunt. He had tried for
months to get the mental help that he needed. After multiple calls to the VA over trying to see a
psychiatrist, Hunt committed suicide. Five weeks after his death, his appeal for disability finally
came through. It was not until four years after his death that this act was put into place to help
veterans like Hunt. Obama said at the signing of the bill, He suffered physical injuries that
healed, and he suffered invisible wounds that stayed with him (Leonard, 2015).
Men and women die every day because they do not have the access to the help that they
need. The Clay Hunt Act that Obama passed helped to get some veterans help, but there is so
much more that needs to be done for veterans that have put their lives on the line for their
country. It is not their fault that they have these suicidal thoughts. Going into basic training, it is
a slow process that they work into going into the battle field. When these men/women come
home, they are thrown right back into their lives again, and this can be very traumatic. They do
not have anyone to talk to and cannot get the medical attention they very desperately need
(Lucas, Hanrahan, 2016).
The current bills and policies that have been put into place are not enough. They have
helped to make health care and different resources available to veterans, but there are still too
many men and women dying because they cannot get the help that they need. Mental health is
not something that can be taken lightly and needs to have more attention so that policies can
change and these people can get the help that they need.
How Policies Can Change
The system now for a veteran to be able to receive VA benefits are very difficult and take
months or even years for them to be able to get their benefits. Many veterans that have served do
not even count as eligible because they did not serve for long enough, or because they did not get
discharged in the correct way. The only way to receive VA benefits is to be honorably discharged
or released from duty. They also have to have served for their full time or 24 continuous months
or the period of full active duty. This is causing many people to not be able to get their benefits
that they were promised when they signed up for the military (Removing Barriers to Mental
Health Services for Veterans, n.d.).
One of the things that would help would be to hire more people to work with the veterans
so that they could sign up for their benefits faster and get the help that they need easier. The
transition from benefits of being full time in the military to using VA benefits is a very long
process and many people are backlogged for months. This process can take too long and these
veterans need help right after they get back from war, not months later. Not having enough
staffing is the biggest barrier for veterans and their care (Removing Barriers to Mental Health
Services for Veterans, n.d.).
There are not enough doctors to take care of the ever growing number of veterans so it
makes it very difficult for the veterans to find a doctor to see or if they find one, they are on a
waiting list for months. Only about one in three marines that are tested for PTSD once they are
home reported seeing a mental health provider. That is too many people that are not being
treated. One way to fix this would be to offer incentives for doctors and staff that would work
with veterans. These incentives could be to help pay off student loans, offer scholarships, and
direct financial incentives. This has been proven to work in other areas in rural districts that
needed health care providers, but this has not been used in veteran affairs. Because staffing is
one of the biggest issues with veterans not getting the help they need, this seems like one of the
best ways for more people to get hired and then help reduce the wait time for being able to see a
heath care professional. If these men and women that need help can see a doctor, it could help
decrease the suicide rate in veterans (Removing Barriers to Mental Health Services for Veterans,
n.d.).
Conclusion
I believe that there is so much more that we could be doing for our veterans, but helping
decrease the suicide rate in the veterans by increasing the doctors and personnel that take care of
them is the first step in helping to decrease the suicide rates. Veterans are not getting the mental
health help that they deserve in the US. Policies that have been implemented in the past are not
enough. Wait times to see a doctor are too long and need to be shortened if there is any hope in
decreasing the suicide rate for veterans. A new policy providing incentives for doctors to work
for the VA would help to get more doctors, which in turn would decrease the wait time it takes
for a veteran to be seen by a doctor and could lower the suicide rates dramatically.Hiring more
claims personnel would decrease the wait and backlog for veterans trying to claim disability and
get their VA benefits. Things need to change so that less veterans are being lost after they come
home from war.
References
Ashrafioun, L., Pigeon, W. R., Conner, K. R., Leong, S. H., & Oslin, D. W. (2016). Prevalence and
correlates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among veterans in primary care referred
for a mental health evaluation. Journal of Affective Disorders, 189, 344-350.
doi:10.1016/j.jad.2015.09.014
Denneson, L. M., Williams, H. B., Kaplan, M. S., Mcfarland, B. H., & Dobscha, S. K. (2016).
Treatment of veterans with mental health symptoms in VA primary care prior to suicide.
General Hospital Psychiatry, 38, 65-70. doi:10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2015.08.007
H.R.203 - 114th Congress (2015-2016): Clay Hunt SAV act. (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2016, from
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/203
Leonard, K. (2015, February 12). Obama signs suicide prevention bill to aid veterans. U.S. News &
World Report. Retrieved April 15, 2016, from
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/02/12/obama-signs-veterans-suicide-preventionbill
Lucas, P. A., & Hanrahan, K. J. (2016). No soldier left behind: The veterans court solution.
International journal of law and psychiatry, 45, 52-59. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2016.02.010
Removing barriers to mental health services for veterans. (n.d.). Retrieved from American public
health association: http://www.apha.org/policies-and-advocacy/public-health-policystatements/policy-database/2015/01/28/14/51/removing-barriers-to-mental-health-servicesfor-veterans
