Senate Approves Amendment Forcing New Unified DoD Suicide Prevention Program; House Vote Pending

Senate Passes Murray Measure to Reform Defense Suicide Prevention Programs

by Adam Ashton
The News Tribune, Dec. 5, 2012

The Senate this week passed an amendment that would reshape the Defense Department’s behavioral health and suicide prevention programs, compelling each service to adopt common practices.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., submitted the provision to the $631 billion defense authorization bill. Her amendment mirrors a bill she submitted in June.

“This is a major step forward in Congress really focusing on the issue of mental health of our service members, and it has not been done before,” Murray, the chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said today.

Her proposal seeks to standardize the Defense Department’s varied suicide prevention programs. Each branch of the armed forces takes its own approach, according to a 2011 RAND Corp. study.

The Army, Navy and Marines lack formal policies to restrict troubled service members from obtaining lethal means, and none of the armed services offer guidelines describing the benefits of reaching out for help, according to the RAND study.

Murray’s amendment also takes steps to streamline the sharing of records between the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs; it encourages both the Pentagon and the VA to hire combat veterans as peer counselors for service members in behavioral health programs; and it expands access to behavioral health programs for the families of service members.

“It really is prevention,” she said. “It helps us by reaching out to the family members who are on the front lines, and the peer-to-peer counseling, which we know is a really important part, but is not part of the services today,” she said.

Suicides in the military started climbing considerably in 2005, and the trend has not abated despite major investments in new programs and outreach efforts across the services.

This year, the number of suspected Army suicides reached 166 by October, surpassing the 2012 total of 165.

Murray’s amendment has one more hurdle to being adopted. It has to go to a review by the House Armed Services Committee before the House and Senate can negotiate the differences between their separate defense bills.

Read the rest of this story:

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/military/2012/12/05/senate-passes-murray-measure-to-reform-defense-suicide-prevention-programs/

Congressional Leader Seeks to Change Law With Bill to Strengthen Mental Health Care for Veterans, Families

Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, has introduced a bill to strengthen oversight and protection of veterans’ mental health care. A key provision of the bill, called the Mental Health ACCESS Act of 2012, would allow family members access to mental health care at VA treatment facilities. It would also force the DoD to standardize suicide prevention programs and create additional oversight of military suicide prevention efforts.

Senator Murray Introduces Mental Health Bill, Speaks on Senate Floor

New legislation would make improvements to ensure that those who served have access to consistent, quality behavioral health care
 
by Senator Patty Murray
US Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, June 26, 2012

(Washington, D.C.) – As it becomes increasingly clear that the Pentagon and VA are losing the battle on mental and behavioral health conditions that are confronting so many of our servicemembers and veterans, Senator Murray gave a speech on the Senate floor to introduce her new servicemembers and veterans mental health legislation, the Mental Health ACCESS Act of 2012.

Her speech also comes as the Pentagon begins a comprehensive military-wide review, which Senator Murray urged Secretary Panetta to conduct on diagnoses for the invisible wounds of war dating back to 2001.  The misdiagnosis of behavioral health conditions has been a constant problem for soldiers at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, where to date over 100 soldiers and counting have had their correct PTSD diagnosis restored following reevaluation. 

Read more about Senator Murray’s bill here.
 

The Mental Health ACCESS Act of 2012 would:

- require the Department of Defense to create a comprehensive, standardized suicide prevention program;

- expand eligibility for a variety of Department of Veterans Affairs mental health services to family members;

- strengthen oversight of DoD Mental Health Care and the Integrated Disability Evaluation System;

- improve training and education for our health care providers; create more peer-to-peer counseling opportunities;

- and require VA to establish accurate and reliable measures for mental health services.

Read transcript of Senator Murray’s speech introducing the bill:

http://www.veterans.senate.gov/press-releases.cfm?action=release.display&release_id=ff1db01f-0913-41bf-b966-8cdd3a5fbd75

Read story about Sgt. Stephen Davis and his wife Kim:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-army-madigan-ptsd-20120222,0,5841895.story

Malingering Rare, Popular Prescriptions “Can Cause Harm” Says Army’s Top Medical Officer in New PTSD Guidance

Army’s New PTSD Guidelines Fault Madigan’s Screening Tests

The Army Surgeon General’s new guidance for diagnosing PTSD is critical of an approach once routine at Madigan Army Medical Center.

by Hal Bernton
Seattle Times April 21, 2012

The Army Surgeon General’s Office has issued new guidelines for diagnosing PTSD that criticize an approach once routinely used at Madigan Army Medical Center.

The policy, obtained by The Seattle Times, specifically discounts tests used to determine whether soldiers are faking symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It says that poor test results do not constitute malingering.

The written tests often were part of the Madigan screening process that overturned the PTSD diagnoses of more than 300 patients during the past five years.

Madigan medical-team members cited studies that said fabricated PTSD symptoms were a significant — and often undetected — phenomenon. They offered the tests as an objective way to help identity “PTSD simulators” among the patients under consideration for a medical retirement that offers a pension and other benefits.

The team’s approach once was called a “best practice” by Madigan leaders, including Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho, a former commander who now serves as the Army’s surgeon general. But earlier this year, amid patient protests about overturned diagnoses, the team was shut down as the Army launched several investigations.

ABOUT FACE: Patricia Horoho, Army officer promoted in 2011 to 3-star general and appointed by president Obama as first female Army Surgeon General, was the former commander at Madigan Army Medical Center from 2008-2010. Horoho previously praised her subordinate doctors' practice of reversing PTSD diagnoses at Madigan as "best practice."

Though none of the Army findings have been publicly released, the April 10 “policy guidance” from the surgeon general charts new directions for PTSD screening at Madigan and elsewhere in the Army medical system.

PTSD is a condition that results from experiencing a traumatic event, such as a battlefield casualty. Symptoms can include recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, irritability and feeling distant from other people.

Some people recover from PTSD. For others, it may be a lifelong struggle.

The new policy downplays the frequency of soldiers faking symptoms to gain benefits, citing studies indicating it is rare. It also rejects the view a patient’s response to the hundreds of written test questions can determine if a soldier is faking symptoms for financial gain, and it declares that a poor test result “does not equate to malingering, which requires proof of intent… “

Read the rest of this story:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018041659_ptsd22m.html