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From
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080420/ap_on_re_us/veterans_care_lawsuit
By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - 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.
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