Vet suicide hotline problems fixed: VA
WASHINGTON, April 4, (AP): The Department of Veterans Affairs is telling skeptical members of Congress that it has fixed problems with its suicide hotline that were highlighted in a critical recent internal watchdog report.
A March 20 audit by the VA inspector general had found that nearly a third of calls to the Veterans Crisis Line as recently as November were bounced to back-up centers run by an outside contractor. The rollover calls happen when phone lines are busy, leading to possible waits of 30 minutes or more. It was unwelcome news for VA Secretary David
Shulkin, who has made suicide prevention a signature issue in the troubled agency, riven with scandal since reports of delays in treatment at veterans hospitals last year.
Approximately veterans take their lives each day. On Tuesday, the VA plans to tell the House Veterans Affairs Committee that the most serious issues with the veterans’ crisis hotline have been resolved.
Calls to the Veterans Crisis Line that rolled over to backup centers steadily declined from 31 percent in early November, to just 0.1 percent as of March 25, according to internal VA data submitted to Congress and obtained by The Associated Press. That came despite growing workloads in which weekly calls to the hotline jumped from 10,558 in November to 13,966 last month, the VA said.
As recently as mid-December, when the IG was finalizing its audit, the share of rollover calls had declined close to the VA’s goal of 10 percent. That figure dropped to less than 1 percent by early January, according to the agency.
Crisis
The crisis hotline “is the strongest it has been since its inception in 2007,” Steve Young, VA’s deputy undersecretary for health for operations and management, says in testimony prepared for Tuesday’s hearing. He described the hotline in recent months as “offering superior access for veterans during their time of need.”
Shulkin, who previously served as VA’s top health official, has also described the issue as resolved. “Fixing the Veterans Crisis Line was a critical step in keeping our commitment to veterans,” he said in a March 21 statement.
VA inspector general Michael Missal said he cannot confirm the data, but emphasized in prepared testimony that the Veterans Health Administration had not implemented any of the IG’s proposed improvements, dating back to February 2016.
Meanwhile, a 102-year-old World War II veteran who served with Canadian and American forces and survived captivity by the Nazis has received his high school diploma and overdue medals.
Sydney Cole dropped out of his Buffalo, New York, high school in the 1930s. Rejected by the US Army Air Corps before America entered the war, Cole headed across the border and joined the Canadian Royal Air Force.
He was discharged after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and joined the US Army in 1943.
Cole was piloting an artillery observation plane during the Battle of the Bulge when he was shot down in early 1945. He spent the next four months in a German POW camp.
Cole received his diploma Friday and 10 medals, including a Purple Heart and Bronze Medal.