After the parades end, time to focus on veterans’ mental health
Each year around Veterans Day, we hold parades for our servicemen and women, offer them discounted meals and remember to applaud as they board the airplane first.
What we really owe them is year-round attention to their mental health services. Specifically, making sure they’re getting the help they need when they need it. Statistics show they’re not.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs lists the average wait time online for new patients seeking mental health services at individual facilities, and the numbers for our local agencies are not a good look.
For the Kissimmee VA Clinic, a veteran will wait on average 32 days before receiving mental health treatment. The Crossroads VA Clinic in Winter Park has an average wait time of 28 days. In Clermont, the average wait time is 21 days. The Orlando VA Clinic reports a significantly shorter average wait time of six days but veterans have offered contrasting accounts.
Jose Belen, a veteran who served in Iraq, struggled with PTSD and tried to end his life in 2016 before learning how to manage his symptoms with medication and therapy. Belen lived in Central Florida from 2007-2018 and said he often experienced long waits to receive service and heard the same story from others in the veteran community.
He experienced similar delays since moving to South Florida. In October, he tried to set up an appointment with a new psychiatrist after his original one was reassigned. A receptionist told him there were no openings until the end of December into January.
“That’s just not OK,” said Belen, who co-founded Mission Zero, a nonprofit aimed at lowering suicide rates for veterans. “When we’re looking at the suicide epidemic among veterans right now, one life lost every 72 minutes, there really is no time. We have to have all hands on deck. It’s a systematic failure when it comes to vets.”
The good news in Belen’s situation was that another receptionist who was familiar with his case overheard the call, intercepted and was able to get him an appointment the following week.
Longer mental health service delays aren’t a surprise for a state boasting the third-largest veteran population in the country. Florida has 1.5 million veterans across the state including our current governor, Ron DeSantis.
In Orlando alone, a reported 19,000 veterans received disability compensation in 2018, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Our numbers are even more reason why mental health services should be met with urgency by VA clinics and hospitals, by elected officials and by communities at large.
Florida is in the thick of the suicide epidemic for ex-military members that has gotten worse for both younger and older veterans since 2005.
The latest statistics show that in 2017, 512 Florida veterans took their own lives. Nationally, that number was 6,139 veterans. Florida’s rate of suicide among veterans was higher than the rates nationally or in the Southeast.
Veterans can feel particularly socially isolated by their trauma because so few people can relate to their pain.
Kissimmee veteran Everett Miller was haunted by his time in the Marines. His behavior was bizarre, and he sought VA treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, in 2017, he gunned down two Kissimmee police officers in cold blood. Miller was convicted in September, and now a judge must decide whether he should receive the death penalty or life in prison.
The murders cannot be excused — two public servants will never again see their families.
But Miller’s inner torment was made clear in testimony during the penalty phase of the trial. One witness described Miller as being in a “downward spiral.” We should hold Miller accountable, but we ignore what he was going through at our own peril.
To help veterans, private citizens like Belen and organizations like UCF are creating more targeted and dedicated resources to assist.
UCF Restores, based in Orlando, offers a free, three-week therapy program for veterans struggling with PTSD. The Camaraderie Foundation, located near downtown Orlando, helps veterans pay for medical services outside of the VA. No Limit Health and Education, founded in 2016 offers mental health counseling at a discounted cost for veterans outside of the VA as well.
Programs like these, while valuable, cannot function alone. They depend on state and federal governments devoting more resources and effort toward helping veterans who suffer in silence.
Veterans answered the call to serve our country. Will we answer the call to serve them?