Veteran suicides are increasing. So why is the VA reducing access to mental health care?

Each year, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs conducts the largest national analysis of veteran suicide rates. Unfortunately, the results are frightening.

The department’s latest report reveals an increase in suicide rates among veterans. Approximately 17 veterans commit suicide every day, a devastating number that we must address.

The report reflects the fact that veterans are 1.5 times more likely to commit suicide than the non-veteran adult population. Four times as many veterans of post-9/11 wars committed suicide as did wartime operations.

This problem is personal to me. My son-in-law served his country honorably during two combat deployments to Iraq, including a mission in which I participated. Like too many veterans, he struggled to reintegrate into civilian life. The deployment changed him and, despite the support of a loving and supportive family, he took his own life.

No veteran family should have to go through this heartbreaking experience.

The VA says in its annual report that we need a nationwide public health approach, including “making access as easy as possible to a continuum of evidence-based mental health treatment.”

So why is the VA contradicting its own words by reducing veterans’ access to mental health services?

Reports indicate that VA systems have stopped funding veterans’ mental health care services provided by non-VA providers offered through Community Care. The VA has disrupted this essential service even though the department is required by Congress to pay for outside health care when the VA does not provide treatment, a veteran lives too far from a VA facility, or Wait times for VA appointments are excessive.

After being contacted by dozens of veterans about the issue, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla. — an Afghanistan veteran — sent VA Secretary Denis McDonough a letter in May asking why a VA center in his district has “begun denying veterans access to their outside mental health providers.”

Twenty senators, led by Veterans Affairs Committee Ranking Member Jerry Moran, R-Kan., also wrote to McDonough in July about veterans whose community care authorizations have been revoked by the VA. Those senators urged McDonough to reaffirm “veterans’ right to seek community care,” even amid the department’s “alleged budget shortfalls.”

Months have passed since these letters, but the problem remains. In early December, a coalition of 24 veterans organizations raised the issue with McDonough again, citing recent examples of veterans being denied a referral to community care and demanding that the VA end ” the concerted and strategic effort” to reduce care.

Yet veterans continue to lose access to community care, subjecting them to VA waitlists that last weeks — all while veteran suicide rates rise.

According to the senators, the VA appears to be significantly reducing community care in response to suggestions from a panel commissioned by the department to “evaluate trends and factors that are leading to increased spending on community care.”

They say the panel concluded that community care poses “a potential existential threat” to the VA’s own medical system. As a result, the panel suggested the VA “save money by reducing referrals to community care for veterans seeking emergency, oncology, and mental health care,” the senators write.

The senators argue that the increase in the number of reports from veterans, in addition to whistleblowers working at VA facilities, suggests that the department wholeheartedly adopted the committee’s suggestion.

These veterans and whistleblowers say the VA has increased its vetting of referrals to community care. Interfering in veterans’ care in this way could worsen wait times and result in veterans not receiving any care.

It is appalling that the VA would decide to cut access to mental health care for veterans to address fiscal mismanagement at a time when the department has distributed millions in bonuses to senior executives and made more than 61 000 external hires last year.

The fact that the VA is undermining community care for veterans is an outrage. The Secretary should immediately issue a directive that reverses intentional efforts to reduce community care.

Once community care is properly restored, the VA should also explore new ways to offer mental health support. One solution would be for community care to cover sessions with certified meditation instructors who can teach veterans how to use this effective practice.

The VA’s website states that Transcendental Meditation, or TM, “decreases the need for medications for anxiety and PTSD among active military personnel” and “reduces blood pressure as well as anxiety and stress.” But a certified TM teacher must first teach the technique in sessions that should be accessible through the VA.

The VA’s mission is to honor America’s veterans by providing exceptional health care that improves their health and well-being. The ministry is failing in this mission, but it can turn the tide by protecting community care.

James “Spider” Marks is a retired major general in the United States Army.