VA Boasts ‘Positive Outcomes’ While Veteran Suicides Are Unchanged
Grabbing headlines, VA spun “positive outcomes” to create the appearance of progress while veteran suicide numbers increase for younger veterans.
The Department of Veterans Affairs was sure to spin the results of its own annual review of its mental health care and suicide prevention programs. And guess what? VA received high marks but will not release the report to the public.
The review and resultant report were mandated by the 2015 Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act. The report was due last December.
VA spokesperson Curt Cashour excused the lack of transparency alleging “VA doesn’t typically release congressionally mandated reports outside of the committees that request them via law.”
The high marks include “most of the mental health programs [that] demonstrated a positive impact on the psychological well-being or functioning of the veterans who use them.”
Agency Boasting
The self-congratulations included a host of positive outcomes but none of which did not include reducing the suicide rate, citing:
- Low readmission rates for veterans using acute inpatient mental health services
- Lower relapse rates for veterans who use residential rehabilitation programs for PTSD
- Increasing success with transition assistance support
- High satisfaction rates for most veterans who used department mental health resources.
You may notice the points listed above (thanks Leo Shane III) are very specific. Usually, when an agency gets very granular in its boasting, you can bet there is more to the story than the agency is telling you.
Shane was critical of the agency’s boasting, which is what brought the report to my attention in his Military Times article.
Did anyone else find it terribly ridiculous how the agency will not release the report but is boasting about the agency’s own report?
What a convenient approach to performance reviews.
I wish we were able to do that in the military.
Veteran Suicide Advertising
For the past 7 years, we have seen spending on suicide prevention advertising skyrocket while the agency fails to adequately staff its own hospitals with mental health professionals.
Tens of millions have been spent. Suicides are static.
Meanwhile, VA is selling the public on increasing its involvement in the lives of veterans who want nothing to do with the agency as a step to reduce suicide. Of the 20 veteran suicides daily, 6 are using VA health care. Fourteen are not.
There are 22 million veterans. Around 6 million use VA health care.
VA has no evidence that pulling the additional 14 veterans into VA as a solution to the suicide rate. But here we are.
“Positive Outcomes” (in VA-speak)= Padded performance bonuses & new larger industrial chairs to accommodate outcome.
100% agree, my nickel.
Improve by getting better personnel, better efficiency. etc.. Reduce costs by providing better care before the condition becomes expensive and through better care avoid much more costly long term care.
And please don’t throw me out to commit suicide in the parking lot.
Lem….I believe that if actual oversight were to take place, any given VA clinic might get away with shit like “kicking you to the kerb” for a while—that’s the nature of huge, geographically disparate organisations—but they would get caught at some point.
Hell, they get caught NOW….it’s just that Congress will not faithfully execute its Oversight duty, nor does the Executive faithfully execute its enforcement duty.
But the Private Sector is not the answer, unless you have a solid job—or your own Law Practice—and can afford the co-payments (assuming they give us the insurance for free).
It’s like the (un) Affordable Care Act—if you have a good job, you could get insurance; but most people who have good jobs already HAVE insurance, it’s just helping them pay their premiums with Tax Credits. Tax Credits are great for well-paid Middle-Class and the Upper Middle Class folks, because they actually have this thing called “disposable” income, so they can spend the money up front and then recoup it later.
You know, like the way the VA does Travel Pay. I don’t need reimbursed…I need petrol to get to the fucking place to start with.
Sorry…I’m up to a dime now.
I keep asking this question and not getting an answer. So you get rid of the VA. Good for you. You win! Hurray. But what do I do? I lose my pension—my only income—and my only health care.
Yes, I have had lousy health care at the VA. I’ve also had solid care at the VA. I’ve even had great care at the VA. Yes, I’ve been (am being?) harassed for rocking the boat. Yes, the Patient “Advocate” is just a shill working his way to becoming a Clinic Director; but we also had an amazing Patient Advocate who was completely dedicated. Despite the Medical Director’s harassment of me, some of the Drs. who work under him deflect, buffer, or just defy his questionable “suggestions”.
None of this is any different than Medicare, and much of it is superior. I can tell you that back when I could work, I would often see notices of Medicare payments being reduced, or effectively reduced by not being increased, and resulting in Drs. and clinics refusing to see Medicare patients any more.
As for Krause’s beloved Choice program, it has the same weakness as Medicare; the “Doctor of [your] Choice” has to be willing to take less than the going rate for your appointment. That’s like asking you to work for 2/3 your pay for an hour, or four, or twenty. Why? Don’t Drs. serve Veterans by paying taxes, which fund the VA, like the rest of the not-super-rich?
No to Disestablishment. No to Privatisation. Change the pay schedules. Change the bonuses. And stop looking for ways to “cut costs” at the VA. If we are having trouble paying for the VA, maybe we shouldn’t be cutting taxes. I paid for my VA care with blood and sanity. I do not have ANY problem demanding those who **chose** to send me into combat **must** carry their own water in taxes.
My nickel.
Well Steven good for you. The claimed harassment must not be that bad if you still work at some VA and you haven’t experienced all out intentional attacks on you from the CBOC to the major VA hospital and on out to the civvy sectors and all the other associations and affiliations. Or you can still trust in their kind of care and training of the kiddies. Are we back to the old used 80/20 or so rules that as long as some are pacified or not complaining that bad the other percent can suffer, be totally ignored, die or driven nuts??? You must not have had any files or communications deleted to protect some staff scum bag and the PAs protecting their “team mates.” Games played by the activist and among several clinics, their activist.
I’ve posted enough about the many issues I’ve had over the years and with others.
If it’s all about the me me me and BIG I then why can’t anyone address the issues I’ve had including all the censoring to the inability to group up or search out others in this state having to endue the same issues from many directions. Or being totally ignored by all and the affiliated freaks involved in any small part of it.. the hate and retaliation full circle.
Largest war machine and budget in the world and the Gov can’t take care of vets or hire proper people for their positions? And we are still getting taxes to death even over conventions centers for lefty universities to stadiums, cough cough, Colosseum games, for the sports crowd or arts or something goofy and of no real importance or low on the needs list or should remain on the want list.
No big deal. People want, enjoy, love, trust the VA and their clowns… let them keep it all and brag on while claiming to do some good…. somewhere. Where do we go when the retaliation, corruption and games have surrounded us completely due to the VA and those covering up for the VA and many other corrupt devices and affiliations going on. Treating one group of vets differently than others then playing secret contract games but you and others seem to easily over-look a lot of that crap. And mention nothing about ways seeing to it that the evil ones are fired from the top down and into the civy world all joined in that self-protective and defensive modes and to hell with the patients. Oh, and to hell with the real numbers of vets being intentionally killed off, driven mad, or totally ignored with the same expectations… with their smiles? Oh those lives and suffering don’t matter. Let’s keep the ones we like pacified and kill the rest. Let’s get real. Most haven’t experience the real natures of the beasts or fear too much to speak some truth about their care or too dependent on it.
Well, other than excoriating me, you didn’t actually answer any of my questions.
I get it…you have been hosed by the VA. I have not been as badly hosed as you, so I am a bad person.
How does that move anything forward?
Oh…and I don’t work at the VA.
I have a “red sheet” (whatever that is) in my file. I have to have a VA “Security Officer” escort me everywhere I go in any VA facility I visit. I don’t even know why.
But I don’t get harassed in the “civvy” sector because I can’t afford to go there. I have to put up with being “escorted” because that’s the only way I get health care.
So I don’t want to just bitch about the VA, or “shut it down”. I want it to work, because it’s ALL I HAVE.
Well Stephen thanks for the reply and info. Didn’t mean to “excoriate” you that bad nor make claims of you being ‘a bad person.’
I got your drift and many others out there or here too and of having NO other choices or inability to pay. I had absolutely no “Choice” but to leave the VA due to all the games, insults, threats, mis-treatment, intentional abuse, gross professional misconduct and more going on and no remedy, help or safe space to be found. You are merely like others in my select group of “orientation” hell thinking we all will bow to the VA and sociopath, narcissistic smiling staff. Those present I could talk to shortly or during the mess also claimed not having any choice but to remain with the VA and to agree to sign whatever documents the VA demanded to be signed later on. Not me. They were killing me off slowly and playing games and I am not a ‘game player’ and I don’t like intimidation or threat tactics or bullying, or corruption. Piss on that I’d rather do without, and am.
I knew some flak and from others about the grand VA or local cabals, mafias, unions, and gubbermints retaliation games. Didn’t know the shit storm that would come from the threats about ‘not finding health care in Indiana again due to the powers of the VA and medial community’, and their colleges. So be it. It is what it is and will be.
As stated before. It would be impossible to shut the entire mess down. Just as impossible as firing the filth, incompetent and corrupt, but if that is all what some are left with… hope for change and cover thine own asses as much as possible. I want it to remain open for those like you… and me once upon a time. Those who need it keep it and improve things instead of all that lip-service and lies we hear. Those who want other “choices’ and for those who can’t get proper care been harmed by the VA and their contractors… give it to them. For the hell raisers like me that has made so many enemies…. there is nothing out there for us and was not for a few hell raisers before me. So what to do? While DC, the FDA to the VA or AMA, SES freaks are more of an enemy than helpers or friends of patients or our freedom of choices or what is legally available to us minus the money games and control freaks.
Have good day.
03/16/2019
Dear Benjamin Krause,
It was stated: “VA received high marks but will not release the report to the public.”
Why is this report [Due in December, mandated by the 2015 Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act] not open to the American Public? What is the Congress/VA hiding?
Leo Shane III has been around for a long time working on this problem [“Leo covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He has covered Washington, D.C. since 2004, focusing on military personnel and veterans policies.”] and this report doesn’t pass the smell test.
As the Military scrambles to fix the Housing Crisis on American Bases, VA is scrambling to fix their Medical deficiencies and failed record keeping. “Tens of millions have been spent. Suicides are static,” and so are the VA Hospital ratings—such as the Phoenix VA.
No one wants to look “deep” into the Phoenix VA, it will become the next “Ghost Hospital” in the Wild West—like the Hacienda Medical Center where everyone abandon the “Facility” from the Executives, to the Board members, the former Congressman’s wife, and even the investigators—-over an event that has caught the World’s eye here in Phoenix, AZ.
According to “T” all hell is breaking out with the VA and their associates as they flash smiles on their faces for your reassurance that everything will be just fine.
Obviously, those People are not to Trust. Are we at a point of no return? I am sure Elaine Knowles sides with this argument.
Again [5 Years] is the VA being Sabotage from within?
Sincerely,
Don Karg
Don, looking at the big picture taking the small to large issues in total honest consideration, and from all my experiences along with some others… I think we are far beyond a point of no return. Doesn’t matter how we label or see things. Socialism, communism, fascism, corporatism, deep rooted establishments, NWO, urban warfare with everything weaponized..all the activist, agents of whomever, whatever and everything about this country included. If my lousy corrupt fascist state and community can get by doing what it has, blocking realities and truths? I have to really wonder and concerned about those in other states and communities that are seemingly just as silent or have blocked real news and issues from getting out as well.
Side note. I think we lost Dennis. No return communications and his Instagram has either been hacked like mine has been several times, or his and all the information has been deleted somehow.
Military dot com years back was a good source, or better than the MSM that also went bad. Had good forums until the old guard and moderators passed on or were bullied out by the younger ones taking over, or those who demanded we make no complaints about the VA at all. They like Ben were good for getting some info about Voc Rehab to all the paper work and filing issues facing vets. Some being retired or then present VA staff and vets. One new mod even blocked me from getting news updates from them since he was upset when what I thought was good care went really sour. One guy an AForce VA staff or sounded like it private messaged me and openly told me he hated people like me and those who dared to question or complain about the government, MSM, or anything about the VA, their unions and contractors. “We should just shut-up and be glad to get what we were.” We can’t have forums like that today or the old Geocities or free speech Yahoo chat forums that used to exist. But all that was like back in the Micro 3.1 or before days of pc playing coming out more. So like the Stars and Stripes, the MSM, I don’t expect much out of any media sources today aside from the independents they are all attempting to silence and destroy too.
Some news and report are released, some not, or like you say are not investigated nearly deep enough or anyone keeping on top of the related stories or reports.
A couple comments on mental health at the Gainesville VA: how about 4 psychiatrists in a 12 month period After having gone to the VA for 13 years I am out raged at being bounced around this past year to this many different psychiatrists. My 2017 five day inpatient hospitalization on the nut ward was a nightmare. I will never go back for an inpatient hospitalization voluntarily again No matter how suicidal I was. That’s why rates for Inpatient mental health readmission are lower (Supposedly). They did absolutely nothing for me for five days And I felt worse than when I went in. That’s what that statistic is saying the quality of service was so horrible no vet would go back. Not that they’ve done such a wonderful job helping the vets with their inpatient hospitalizations! If the Malcom Randall VA is such a wonderful VA then why am I had to botched surgeries for psychiatrists in one year all kinds of billing issues. Yes they just wrote off my estrogen this month as being related to me being a service-connected vet and I called them up and said my estrogen??what does that have to do with my service connected hip are you kidding me? I’m over medicated to the point where I sleep 12 hours a day. That’s their solution for treating my bipolar disorder just zonk me out till I am in a coma practically. I can’t function at all. Oh that’s right but I’m fine that’s why I wake up every day and say what’s the reason I’m getting out of bed today? No worries. And let me not forget records being changed records disappearing. No I’m not paranoid I have hardcopies of before and after of records that substantiate that the records were changed relating to my botched cancer operations. CYA And they did!
The VA always says they’re doing a good job. Nobody High-up ever questions that. The Congress just continues along their own Bobble-headed way sending the VA more and more money. The reports are always inflated to make the VA look good. Just crunch a few numbers on medication errors alone at .01 (1 percent) x 6million you’ve got 60,000 veterans getting hurt. Now this doesn’t include deliberate attempts to get the Veteran addicted. How about co-administartion of metformin with glucophage for diabetes? Usual results are kidney damage beyond repair. How about the bulsshit ” you’re borderline diabetic”? One year later you’re almost blind. How about pravastatin causing false positives for diabetes not to mention robbing your brain of essential fatty acids? How about all the botched surgeries by residents? How about the 30 some odd pharmaceuticals they have to try on your depression to see which one zombifies you the best? Where is the medical informatics data the VA has been collecting since 1999 (It’s crammed up some DOD lifers ass and he’s not going to crap all over his fellow VA Shamans) ? How about disclosing the stats on all the civil torts that have been paid, lets say in just the last 25 years. COME ON- do you think we are all morons, you lying assed motherfuckers!
Not buying the results of this report – Due to a shortage of VAMH clinicians and their limited scope of expertise (currently one therapy modality fits all) unfortunately, the veteran is given two options, give up and opt out or opt in believing that something is better than nothing and hope to not be re-traumatized. To make matters worse, the clinicians’ themselves are overwhelmed and apathetic. Very little good can come out of this situation. Mental Health is a demanding business and it helps if this area of medical treatment was being adequately supported by the VA. But what can we expect from a group of governing troglodytes where it’s easier to do business as usual exploiting and marginalizing the disenfranchised.
Issue not being able to resolve problems with the VA – The reason why it takes so long to get subpar medical treatment by the VA is because it’s all about the numbers of veterans enrolled in order to receive their money and not about healing. If the veteran’s were receiving adequate medical treatment then the numbers would decrease, equals less money. Who knows, maybe due to a good reputation the numbers would increase which would mean more money. Good things could actually become of good intentions.
Solution – Have the people involved with managing VAHCS get their medical needs met within the system they promote. My bet, things would change for the better, fast. Just saying.
Peace Out
It’s the same old game of cat & mouse, maybe asking the commander in chief to force the committee to release the information is about the only way these so called higher UPS will get it through their think skulls of transparency, if there’s another way to get this done it would be great, for those Veterans who continue to commit suicide and get them the help they need
They are very good at 2 things. One being able to create things with little truth and roll it out like pizza making paper thin, looks great on the table but once pick it up it becomes full of holes. The other is they can make themselves look great, even in a shit storm, just as one of the suicides written here. No one. Learned of the suicide for 6 months because hid it sending a out an email stating didn’t need anything negative in the news. The reason found out was because a whistle blower, taking great pride bringing forward. But like the rest they too were a loser because should have been told when happened and or at least when the email was sent out. Not when upset with a supervisor.
The VA continues to realize that the suicide of so many veterans is a NATIONAL EMERGENCY, and continues to fail to react properly, (similarly like our inability to properly react to the Japanese threat until we go the upper hand in Europe against the Nazis.
Unfortunately, our failure to properly react wil be the death of many more of our brothers, while the short pants wearing, lolly pop licking VA bureaucracy marches on and on into the sunset with false acclaims of progress.
Any barely literate, or barely seeing person knows that administration of health care by government bureaucrats is an abject failure
Yep. Veteran suicide rates are static all right. Statically increasing. Should hit 40 or so daily by 2025. The VA Upper Management is not to be trusted. EVER.
EVER!
Yesterday I attended my first, “primary care provider” appointment in 9 months at the eugene, oregon v.a. clinic. It is the first time in 9 months there has been a primary care provider available. The previous provider terminated without notice. I have had 7 primary providers in the last 18 months. None of them were doctors.
My medical problems include military injuries; broken neck at c5, 3 traumatic brain injuries/skull fractures, crushed right ankle, nrokennright elbow, broken ribs, 400 stitches on my head alone. In relation to these injuries I have congestive heart failure (3 emergency heart surgeries), ankolosing spondytus, ankolosing loarpthy,
Rheum. Arth., gout, osteo
art. Lyme dis. (All chronic), v.a. botched kidney surgery (twice), 3 years to get chemo therapy, 6 years to get neurological treatment, but then it went no where because the entire neurological staff quit without notice, a member of the Albuquerque new mexico v.a. medical center “death list”, on and on…..
The point to this narration is, that after all I ‘ve been thru the so-called “primary doctors/provider” informed me that there was nothing he could do for any of my problems especially when it comes to pain. He said, Skelton n.p., that the best thing I could do would be to commit suicide. As he added, “it was my choice”.
Look to the scum bag v.a. if anyone wants to know why veterans commit suicide!
@Christopher Miller,
Your 100% correct. We’ve had more than our share of vets tell us how VA’s alleged healthcare providers are telling vets to “off themselves!”
Maybe if VA employees would “off themselves” we’d receive better healthcare.
Just a thought!?????
Maybe they already offed themselves. Being the illiterate self serving scu m they are, they do not realize they are finished. I just hope they will finish before they kill me!
how do I delete this comment lol. I’m afraid to even talk about this. I just want things to be better for people and I don’t want to make things worse… I have learned to wait and be patient. If I had done less complaining and more living and fighting to thrive for myself and family my brother may still be alive. We do not need the VA and We do not need the government.
I had staff pushing me in a wheelchair tell me If I really want to kill myself id just do it. just a vet working at the VA who than proceeded to brag about his pension from survice and paycheck from the VA. Honestly I really want to piss on that guys grave so in a way he has helped me!
The wheel chair is a tough row. Had it for a few years but wasn’t confined to it. Now my back is pretty well healed and I rarely even use crutches.
I’d like to be able to say I know where you are coming from but I don’t. I heard it said once, “You should walk a mile in my shoes, then you would be a mile away from me, have my shoes and not have to listen to my shit.” That about covers it for those without empathy.
And the subtext of that is I won’t have to put up with your shit. Try it on the next one. You might try my amendment.
you get to an age were living with pain and getting no where fast is not worth living. Procrastination by the VA when it comes to health care is for most vets one of the biggest reason to check out. I spoke with a practice nurse in Orlando, FL at the VA hospital and she informed me if they were to fire the employees who have poor attitudes and could care less about vets, the place would clear out fast. A 5 year old facility with all the best in place but lacking quality employees who can’t be fired because of labor unions.
If the courts can hold the manufacturer of fire arms responsible for Sandy Hook. “Court Rules Gun-Maker Remington Can Be Sued Over Sandy Hook Shooting.”
Than the labor unions that protect below par employees should be held to the same standards.
“Low readmission rates for veterans using acute inpatient mental health services
Lower relapse rates for veterans who use residential rehabilitation programs for PTSD
Increasing success with transition assistance support
High satisfaction rates for most veterans who used department mental health resources”
Low readmission rates because end of life self inflicted.
Lower relapse rates because of end of life self inflicted.
High satisfactions rates by not counting those thrown out of the system and out of the system because of end of life self inflicted.
It is all about how you actually read the report if you have the information access to read it properly. Good report if read properly.
I started at the Dallas VA in 2013. They had us cleaning the facility because of a inspection and low level staff told us it was part of our treatment. I really don’t mind mopping floors and cleaning at all. It makes me happy but the attitude of the people telling us to do it is vary minipulitive and degrading. It also added stress to the veterans in treatment because of the staff in fear of the inspectors potentially punitive action. A lot of the “vets” in that program are older and have been threw multiple times and my veteran peers from post 9/11 are treated as a unwelcome change of pace for the staff and administration. I was vary upset and not in a good place at the time. I was labeled a malingerer by a doctor who was promoted to the director after my inpatient experience. I moved to a new VA and everything was great and I was treated great. I was vary excited and hopeful. Then they requested my VA records from DALLAS… now my appointments have been scheduled with out my knowledge by admin one after the other so I missed five appointments in a 2 week period and was chewed out by the RN because “we take suicide vary seriously” she said… punitively insinuating I wasn’t really ever suicidal. They really believe if your going to kill yourself you just do it. If you ask for help they treat you like the worst kind of wellfair qween. I hate them. My brother killed himself in 2016 and was a civilian. I’m not just talking about the VA this is a class of people who make 200,000+ a year using a black population as low level staff. They act as a buffer between the post 9/11 vets and the organizations that are for profit! Socialist health care looks like the most clandestine human trafficking. Not just the VA the entire public health care system! This is class war-fair. They train and employ people from war torn African countries in Seattle Washington and distributing the people to staff facilities as low or mid level employees in Texas at places like Sundance. It’s rich people making money of us and we are stupid to think that it’s about anything else. The wars all of it! The VA is just one MEGA church in our elites state religion. Vets are the ones gather slaves for the temples. Humans are currency and we all helped destabilize the world in ignorance.
Stickinthesand, At least you have the info to know what is really going on. But the problem here isn’t socialism. It is unbridled capitalism even as you describe it. This is supposed to be Accountable Care but the wrong people wrote the bonus program so instead we get the cheapest HMO care. Denial of care to keep the costs down. The cheapest to be hired care givers.
Given some VAMCs are better but it is because of leadership not because of the system which works against the good leader.
Lousy mental health treatment via the VA caused 6 of these suicides daily. We cannot solve sucide of veterans until we solve all sucide. Which is not going to happen. There is no university that offers a degree in mental health. Mental Health is a side science and nothing will change until the approch to a cure changes.
Sarah Sanders, the president’s press Secretary, came out the other day and, during a long interview, said “they” can’t figure out how to correct the VA. I paraphrased that a little. Only, it shows the White House is aware of the VA and is letting people know the VA is still a problem.
I know that doesn’t mean much to some. Only, if you had the problems facing you as much as those in the White House had facing them – I wonder if you’d still be sane.
Think about that for awile – ok!
Elf I have no pity or sympathy for those in DC, politics, media, unions, etc. I see some very easy fixes full circle but too many are more worried about job security, da votes, filling quotas, NEPOTISM, mafias, corporations, bankers, affirmative action type junk, appeasing foreigners, using their visas which Trump is for too, filling spots in the VA and Gov with illegals, immigrants whatever. To pacifying every aspect of our insurance predators, SES types, mental or physical health care cabals and profiteers VA or not. Two party games serving the same masters and their interests generation to generation. Think about them all living above the rest of us, knowing full well that people are out here suffering… intentionally? To the illegal’s “Catch and Release” programs spreading more problems and strains on our health care systems and more. Nope not me. How any of them can sleep nights while playing the photo-op games to luxury balls, and much more? Ha. Their problems up there can’t even come close to what myself and many others deal with daily or about all the corruption and covering-up being done. Let them go out and experience the real world they claim to be aware of … but actually do not, far from it. Along with Kuchner’s dual loyalties, or Trump’s surgically enhanced Barbie daughter.
Scum of Hollywood and others caught paying off universities and others for degrees? Nothing new and connections and money can get people into health care positions, colleges, get un-earned degrees, into the legal fields, to corrupt academia, get shoe-horned into politics or power positions and on and on the problems worsen and is fully protected.
Expected and wanted recidivism, readmissions, relapses, filling beds, creating states, are job security for some. Phony lying specialist MDs, clinics, rehab joints, fly by night care givers to insurance companies love that crap and is all about the Benjamins. Just like with heroin addicts and others with issues or multiple diagnosis. Only what, to see high failure rates up in the ninety percentile ranges??? To make anything that helps illegal, to using us as lab rats to chasing off those in need that professionals can’t seem to understand or want to deal with. To fill more jails and prisons then the elite clamoring for more money there too to build bigger jails and prisons?
We are dealing with multiples on top of multiples of serious issues simultaneously, many intentionally created and all those in DC fully aware of it. Locals too. Media too being the worse liars out there. Long list of them.
You are a high speed human being! Never quit!
I wouldn’t say rates are ‘static.’ To-date and many years back doing the volunteer work and such all I noticed were increases in all the negatives. Increases too on censoring, omission of truth and facts, to throwing money, grants at the problems instead of needed transparency, accountability, ethics, etc. Plus how can we trust anyone like the gubbermint, VA, or many others that can easily manipulate files, stats, have ‘experts’ to scientist lie or give false info/reports? Really? Plus those who cannot contain or separate their activism or politics from their jobs or positions?
How can we trust anyone demanding we sign special contracts to non-disclosure type agreements with the VA and others? I didn’t stay around long enough to play the game or see if I’d actually get a copy, but the politicians, VSOs and others wanted to see copies or originals of such documents. We were told at time of signing at the next meeting we “might” get copies of such documents… “or not” with smiles. Or those agencies, politicians, etc., contacted over VA corruption or playing with our files to save their “teams” butts claimed they never heard of such things like some claimed never hearing about any negatives concerning the VA. Again, really? I never seen a copy of a so-called release form I had to sign while going under for surgery and all that was dealt with previously. Then told it didn’t happen? And we are to trust anything ‘they’ claim or report? Top down or vice versa?
Back then children were committing suicide fairly often, like self harm/cutting increased to what I encountered. Now it’s at chronic stages, some say epidemic, up to age 15 but most blame it on bullying. More BS. Not much truth coming out about that either. With a huge part of the problem I seen are the bullies/idiots/social engineers/hard line activist/the incompetent being in control with protections for more lies, white-washing and professionals I would not trust with my dog let alone with a hurting sorely confused child or veteran. But we live in society now that we are just supposed to shut-up, conform, and pretend everything is under control, perfect, all positive. I think the true numbers would blow minds but the majority of the public and others up-stairs still would not give a damn.