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VETERANS' CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST VA GOES
TO TRIAL -- Claims VA isn't doing enough to
prevent suicide
and provide adequate mental health care for
veterans.
For background on this lawsuit (with
backlinks)...click here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfMAR08/nf030408-9.htm
The official web site for this lawsuit is here...
http://www.veteransptsdclassaction.org/index.html
Today's story here...
http://ap.google.com/article/
ALeqM5hT16PBQvq8eBb8tuA-4dl1oJpZtwD905HN580
Story below:
-------------------------
Lawsuit: Veterans Affairs has failed to prevent
suicides
By PAUL ELIAS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs isn't doing
enough to prevent suicide and provide adequate medical care for Americans
who have served in the armed forces, a class-action lawsuit that goes to
trial this week charges.
The lawsuit, filed in July by two nonprofit groups representing military
veterans, accuses the agency of inadequately addressing a "rising tide" of
mental health problems, especially post-traumatic stress disorder.
But government lawyers say the VA has been devoting more resources to
mental health and making suicide prevention a top priority. They also
argue that the courts don't have the authority to tell the department how
it should operate.
The trial is set to begin Monday in a San Francisco federal court.
An average of 18 military veterans kill
themselves each day, and five of them are under VA care when they commit
suicide, according to a December e-mail between top VA officials that was
filed as part of the federal lawsuit.
"That failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of
suicides," the veterans groups wrote in court papers filed Thursday.
A study released this week by the RAND Corp. estimates that 300,000 U.S.
troops — about 20 percent of those deployed — are suffering from
depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources," said Gordon
Erspamer, the lawyer representing the veterans groups. "They don't have
enough psychiatrists."
The lawsuit also alleges that the VA takes too long to pay disability
claims and that its internal appellate process unconstitutionally denies
veterans their right to take their complaints to court.
The groups are asking U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, a World War
II U.S. Army veteran, to order the VA to drastically overhaul its system.
Conti is hearing the trial without a jury.
"What I would like to see from the VA is that they actually treat patients
with respect," said Bob Handy, head of the Veterans United for Truth, one
of the groups suing the agency.
Handy, 76, who retired from the Navy in 1970, said he founded the veterans
group in 2004 after hearing myriad complaints from veterans about their
treatment at the VA when he was a member of the Veterans Caucus of the
state Democratic Party. The department acknowledges in court papers that
it takes on average about 180 days to decide whether to approve a
disability claim.
"I would just like to see the VA do the honorable thing," said Handy, who
is expected to testify during the weeklong trial.
Justice Department spokeswoman Carrie Nelson declined comment Friday.
But government lawyers have filed court papers arguing that the courts
have no authority to tell the VA how to operate and no business wading
into the everyday management of a sprawling medical network that includes
153 medical centers nationwide.
The veterans are asking the judge "to administer the programs of the
second largest Cabinet-level agency, a task for which Congress and the
executive branch are better suited," government lawyers wrote in court
papers.
If the judge ordered an overhaul, he would be responsible for such things
as employees workloads, hours of operations, facility locations, the
number of medical professionals employed, and "even the decision whether
to offer individual or group therapy to patients with" post-traumatic
stress, the papers said.
The VA also said it is besieged with an unprecedented number of claims,
which have grown from 675,000 in 2001 to 838,000 in 2007. The rise is
prompted not from the current war, but from veterans growing older,
government lawyers said.
"The largest component of these new claims is the aging veteran population
of the Vietnam and Cold War eras," the government filing stated. "As they
age, older veterans may lose employment-related health care, prompting
them to seek VA benefits for the first time."
Government lawyers in their filings defended its average claims processing
time as "reasonable," given that it has to prove the veterans disability
was incurred during service time.
They also noted the VA will spend $3.8 billion for fiscal year 2008 on
mental health and announced a policy in June that requires all medical
centers to have mental health staff available all the time to provide
urgent care. They said that "suicide prevention is a singular priority for
the VA."
The VA "has hired over 3,700 new mental health professionals in the last
two and a half years, bringing the total number of mental health
professionals within VA to just under 17,000. This hiring effort
continues," they said.
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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