Yesterday the House Committee on Veterans Affairs held a hearing entitled Stopping Veteran Suicides: VA Not Reaching the Veterans that Need the Help. Chairman Bob Filner (CA-D) expressed frustation that the VA is not reaching those veterans who need help and concerned by the agency's lack of response to the growing rate of veteran suicide.
Testifying before the committee were Mike and Kim Bowman from Forreston, Illinois. The Bowman's son, Timothy, was a National Guardsman who served in Iraq and retured to rural Illinois with virtually no attention paid to his precarious mental health. Timothy killed himself at his family’s business on Thanksgiving Day 2005.
Last February the McClatchy Newpapers ran a report telling how Timothy's National Guard unit had returned from treacherous duty in Iraq and scattered to dozens of towns across five states. In the process, many were left to languish. (Read)
Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health, defended the agency's work siting the implementation of a suicide prevention hotline. The Associated Press reported that Chairman Filner questioned the VA's decision to focus on tracking the number of suicides rather than on developing treatment programs to help prevent suicide.
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