VA pathologist was found to be "impaired" and misdiagnosed patients

Fayetteville VA Medical Center Pathologist Fired, Nearly 20,000 Local Veterans At Risk
5 News Online
Melissa Jones
June 18, 2018

Parks said the pathologist saw 19,794 patients. Letters are being sent out to all of them, or to their family members. The hospital is responsible for 53,000 patients each year, he said. Of the more than 19,000 patients involved, 5,250 have died since 2005, and those deaths are under review. He said they did not know if any of the deaths was related to the pathologist's review.

FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) -- Officials with the VA Medical Center in Fayetteville and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced an investigation Monday after a pathologist was found to be "impaired" and misdiagnosed patients, resulting in at least one death.

Dr. Skye McDougall, the Network Director and CEO of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, began the announcement on Monday.
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Marine tattoo of Titan 2 caused viral lie

Reminder: It is not true just because you read it on social media!

Nazi or not? Tattoo sparks Twitter storm over wounded Pasco veteran 
Tampa Bay Times
Howard Altman
June 19, 2018

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is pushing back against a social media post implying that a combat-wounded New Port Richey veteran has a Nazi symbol tattooed on his arm.

Justin Gaertner of New Port Richey, who lost his legs to an explosion in Afghanistan, trained as a forensic analyst to fight online pedophiles through the Department of Homeland Security. [CHRIS URSO | Staff (2015)]

In a tweet Monday afternoon, ICE officials denied the veteran is associated with Nazis. It quotes Justin Gaertner, a Marine who lost both legs to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2011, saying that the tattoo is not an Iron Cross but a "Titan 2" design, the symbol of his platoon.

Gaertner has been featured in news stories about a public-private program to investigate pedophiles, called the Human Exploitation Rescue Operative Child-Rescue Corps or HERO. Created by U.S. Special Operations Command, Homeland Security Investigations and the National Association to Protect Children, the program trains wounded, ill and injured commandos in computer forensics and law enforcement skills to help in the fight against online child sexual exploitation.
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Vietnam Veteran left Leavenworth VA Hospital with gun in parking lot

Veteran found shot in VA parking lot
Leavenworth Times
June 19, 2018

A Vietnam War era veteran died from an apparent suicide last week on the grounds of Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Leavenworth, according to a statement released by a hospital spokesman.

A Vietnam War era veteran died from an apparent suicide last week on the grounds of Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Leavenworth, according to a statement released by a hospital spokesman.

The veteran, who was identified as Michael Douglas, died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at about 4 p.m. Wednesday in the emergency department parking lot of the Eisenhower VA Medical Center, according to a statement issued by Joseph Burks, public affairs officer for VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System.
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And how many more to the uncounted?

How many more of these older veterans will keep being left off the list of veterans who matter?

Miss America from tiara to tarmac?

Miss America Joins the Air Force
Military.com
Under The Radar
June 19, 2018

Scanlan is now an Airman First Class in the Air National Guard. She's also a law student at UC Berkley.

Teresa Scanlan, Miss America 2011, speaks to the crew of the Military Sealift Command dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Charles Drew from the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Cape St. George during a replenishment at sea. (Christopher Johnson/U.S. Navy)

During her term as Miss America, Scanlan participated in USO tours, visited Walter Reed and Bethesda military hospitals and toured several military installations.
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Veterans are twice as likely as civilians to die by suicide

Please pay attention to this, since too many fall into the easy stuff of "raising awareness" that robs veterans of hope they can heal and #TakeBackYourLife instead of taking it.


Veterans more likely than civilians to die by suicide, VA study finds
NBC News
by Maggie Fox
Jun.18.2018

While the trend hasn’t changed since 2014, deaths by suicide are increasing among veterans just as they are in the general population.

James Kohr places an American flag at a veteran's grave at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Odessa, Texas, on May 28.Jacob Ford / Odessa American via AP file

Veterans are twice as likely as civilians to die by suicide, the Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday in its latest report on suicide.

Veterans make up more than 14 percent of all suicides, although they account for only 8 percent of the total population, the VA report said.

While the trend hasn’t changed since 2014, deaths by suicide are increasing among veterans just as they are in the general population, the VA found. Data for the study was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Death Index.

“After adjusting for differences in age, the rate of suicide in 2015 was 2.1 times higher among veterans compared with non-veteran adults,” the report reads. Data for 2015 was the latest complete set of numbers available.

The rate was 1.3 times higher for male veterans compared with civilians and twice as high for female vets, the report found.

“In 2015, an average of 20.6 active-duty service members, non-activated Guard or Reserve members, and other veterans died by suicide each day,” it said.
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PTSD Between Salvation and the Grave

This is what is happening to veterans! 
This was on the New York Post

Shuttered clinics and transferred doctors have veterans fearful the Brooklyn VA hospital is on its way to closing. 

The Bay Ridge facility’s ear, nose and throat clinic – which treats vets exposed to everything from Agent 

Orange in the Vietnam War to new toxins in America’s Mideast conflicts – is losing its contingent of doctors from SUNY Downstate Medical Center. A sign on the clinic door alerted patients that it was closing for good on June 27. 

After a rally by veterans groups and ongoing pressure from Rep. Dan Donovan, the head of the city’s VA hospital system told The Post the clinic will, in fact, remain open. Martina Parauda said two to three part-time staff doctors will be hired to replace the SUNY physicians by the end of the month. 

But vets suspect the VA ultimately wants to shut down the Brooklyn hospital, which sits on valuable oceanview property, or at least ax the last of its inpatient care.

Oh, but we were told that veterans would get such great care! None of the politicians bothered to fill us in on what century that would happen!

WHERE IS AMERICA WHEN VETERANS NEED AMERICA? That is the question publicly asked back in 2006 when I wrote the following. It is a question I have been asking all my life.

I grew up surrounded by veterans from WWII and Korean War. Then I married into another military family. My husband and his nephew fought in Vietnam. My Father-in-law, along with three of his brothers, fought in WWII.

I saw all the parades and saw the ambivalence when veterans were forced to fight battles against the government after they fought for the nation. Promised care was just never there, ready for when they needed it.

In 2003 I was writing about PTSD and what it was doing, just as I was back in 1993 when I got my first computer and jus as I did back in 1984 when the media was not paying attention, so I wrote in the local newspaper. Why am I still asking the same question?

PTSD Between Salvation and the Grave

WHERE IS AMERICA WHEN VETERANS NEED AMERICA? 

Am J Psychiatry 1991; 148:586-591 Copyright © 1991 by American Psychiatric AssociationSuicide and guilt as manifestations of PTSD in Vietnam combat veteransH Hendin and AP Haas Department of Psychiatry, New York Medical College, NY. 

OBJECTIVE: Although studies have suggested a disproportionate rate of suicide among war veterans, particularly those with postservice psychiatric illness, there has been little systematic examination of the underlying reasons. This study aimed to identify factors predictive of suicide among Vietnam combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

METHOD: Of 187 veterans referred to the study through a Veterans Administration hospital, 100 were confirmed by means of a structured questionnaire and five clinical interviews as having had combat experience in Vietnam and as meeting the DSM-III criteria for PTSD. 

The analysis is based on these 100 cases. 

RESULTS: Nineteen of the 100 veterans had made a postservice suicide attempt, and 15 more had been preoccupied with suicide since the war. Five factors were significantly related to suicide attempts: guilt about combat actions, survivor guilt, depression, anxiety, and severe PTSD. Logistic regression analysis showed that combat guilt was the most significant predictor of both suicide attempts and preoccupation with suicide. For a significant percentage of the suicidal veterans, such disturbing combat behavior as the killing of women and children took place while they were feeling emotionally out of control because of fear or rage. 

CONCLUSIONS: In this study, PTSD among Vietnam combat veterans emerged as a psychiatric disorder with considerable risk for suicide, and intensive combat-related guilt was found to be the most significant explanatory factor. These findings point to the need for greater clinical attention to the role of guilt in the evaluation and treatment of suicidal veterans with PTSD. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/5/586

Although the link is from 1991 it applies even more now.

Today the lives of Vietnam veterans are still being claimed by suicide, but now added to the lists of the killed after action by war wounds, are those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? We have studied PTSD. We know the price of war. We know the treatment necessary. We know the medications that have been proven to relieve symptoms. Yet with all we know, what we do not know is how to remove the stigma of those suffering with it. We have yet to change the mind set of the "normal people" who remain safe in a secure world and oblivious to the one certain fact that it very well could have been them suffering instead of standing in judgment and positioning themselves between salvation and the grave.

How many more do we have to lay to rest because of PTSD and suicides when help is there for the asking? How many will we loose because they have to wait too long for treatment when they do finally seek after it? How many more will we loose because of fools mouthing off about something so easy to understand had they managed to find the ability to reach the one shred of compassion they have left within them? What is even more appalling is the fact that none of these deaths by suicide needed to happen had humanity bothered with those who suffer for what we sent them to do. The shame is not their's. The shame belongs to all of us who refuse to stand up for them, to give them a voice, to help them to find hope and help them to heal.

There are more parrots running around the country than patriots screaming "we support the troops" but are no where to be found when they are asked to prove any of their claims. Where are they when the veterans need funding for services they would not have to have had it not been for them being sent to risk their lives? They are telling the veterans they claimed to have supported when they were active, to get over it and deal with it.

Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com

******

We knew what was coming back in 2006 and reported on the Kansas City Star.

"The miscalculation on PTSD echoes last year’s underestimation by the Bush administration of how many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans would need medical treatment. It had underfunded VA health care by $1 billion, despite assurances to Congress that the department had enough money."

WASHINGTON –– The number of troops back this year from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder could be five times higher than the Department of Veterans Affairs predicted. 

Instead of 2,900 new cases that it reported in February to a veterans advocate in Congress, the increase could be 15,000 or more, according to the VA. 

At the Kansas City VA Medical Center, only nine vets from current combat were diagnosed with PTSD in 2004. 

Last year, it was 58. In just the first three months of fiscal 2006, the hospital saw 72. 

“It’s absolutely incredible,” said Kathy Lee, at the Missouri Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

A former Army nurse in Vietnam who works at the hospital, Lee said, “Every single Iraq vet who comes in, I give them a list and say, ‘How many of these (PTSD) symptoms do you have?’ It’s almost nine out of 10.”

Most of the PTSD cases the VA sees involve veterans from earlier conflicts, primarily Vietnam. 

It was a year of telling reports, almost a prediction of what was to come. All of these headlines are still being repeated. 

VA Broken

26.5 million veterans had personal data stolen from a VA employee

2.2 million records stolen from active duty troops

Veterans fighting for jobs

Families need help to cope

Veterans Suicide Wall

When I came home, homeless veterans

PTSD veterans and kids

Congress to cut funds for veterans

The Wall Hand Against Stone

Two words that should not be "Homeless" and "Veteran"
(yes, the original one before it was used in a commercial)

VA underestimated cost of caring for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans by billions while many had to wait years for benefits

Sexual abuse cases in the military

Veteran Centers being overwhelmed by veterans seeking help

Camp Pendleton Marine families in bread lines

To save money, instead of lives, they were closing Psych Units

Older veterans still do not deserve help for PTSD?

Maybe I have just been in this too long. I guess after 36 years, I should have stopped being driven to total anger by others getting attention for what they are not saying about what they are not doing. But to tell you the truth, I am tired of seeing older veterans killing themselves and none of these new groups care.

Sure I was told a long time ago to not go after groups, but considering they actually came after far too many other groups were out there actually doing the work for all generations, I refuse to let this go unchallenged.

If you are among the "22" or "20" a day people, you rank as low on the scale of what you say verses what you actually do. As you can see in the chart, older veterans did not matter any more than the fact we have 50 states but only 21 mattered in the report. 

This one is about Camaraderie Foundation.

BLACK TIE: Camaraderie Foundation launches 'Saving Lives, Saving Families' campaign reported on West Orange Times.

That’s why Neftali “Nef” Rodriguez, executive director of the foundation, created the “Saving Lives, Saving Families” campaign. The campaign is running throughout June in accordance with PTSD Awareness Month, and the goal is to raise $2 million to reach 1,000 post-9/11 veterans and family members who need counseling, emotional and spiritual support. 

Well at least they got that part right with the mind and spirit but they left the body out. Seems they also left out something else.

There are about 25,000 veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and similar struggles in the state alone — and the foundation can currently only support 300 of them. 

What they do not say is within this number, there are many more veterans who have waited longer, and are in fact the majority of the veterans committing suicide in this country.

The Camaraderie Foundation aims to facilitate access to these services and encourages service members to seek help — without feeling judged or isolated by doing so. But the problem is not so simple:

The $2 million fundraiser for the 1,000 OEF and OIF generation and their families, leaves out the majority of veterans and our families. It isn't as if they did not know this. I was contacted by them after reports came out regarding responders not getting help to heal. I asked them what they did and they said they had groups to send veterans to for help. Just OEF and OIF veterans.

I asked them if they were aware the majority of the veterans committing suicide were over the age of 50 and they said they did. Never got an explanation as to why they choose to leave them out, but the truth is, too many of these groups want to make it seem as if the OEF and OIF veterans are the only ones who deserve help.

Veterans in rural areas screwed out of care for PTSD

President Trump loves to say that his administration is giving veterans a choice on their care. For some strange reason, veterans would rather have the VA to be there for them.

This was on the Huffington Post and it shows what veterans are expected to merge into! A system that cannot even take care of the civilians. The difference is that the Congress is responsible for the way veterans get, or are denied, their healthcare.

Remember, these veterans became disabled serving our country. This is the equivalent of turning their backs on our veterans!!

And now you may have  a clue as to why this "Choice" thing is shafting veterans. 

Rural areas have the highest suicide rate and the fewest mental health

There isn’t a single psychiatrist in 65 percent of nonmetropolitan counties, and there’s no psychologist in almost half of them.

Rural areas have the highest suicide rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as a high concentration of veterans, who experience higher rates of suicide than nonveterans. Rates of drug overdoses in rural areas have surpassed those in metropolitan areas. There are also more elderly people, who are often socially isolated and at risk for depression, said Ron Manderscheid, executive director of the National Association for Rural Mental Health.

Elderly veterans are the majority of veterans committing suicide! 65% are over the age of 50!

So, if you're a veteran and live in a rural area of the country, the government told you that the VA cannot help you, so you have to go to a private practice. Oops! Did they think of checking on that one first?

Veterans getting out of jail with help to have hope

Incarcerated vets get second chance through re-entry program
Times Leader
By Kulsoom Khan - For Times Leader
June 17, 2018

Former Marine Gene Santore had a loving family, a thriving business and “lot of money in the bank.”

He nearly lost all of it three years ago when he got arrested for a drug deal and being involved in a robbery.

Gene Santore, 58, of Clarks Summit is a former Marine. After serving some jail time for a drug-related charge in 2015, he participated in the VA’s Veteran Just Outreach Program and Lackawanna County’s treatment court for incarcerated veterans. He now serves as a mentor for the program. - Kulsoom Khan | Times Leader

The Clarks Summit resident served in the Marine corp and in the reserves for six years. He hurt his shoulder in 1989 and had eight surgeries. Santore’s doctors gave him Percocet and Oxycontin to help him deal with the pain, which eventually turned into a serious addiction and led to heroin use later on.

“I was on a 180 milligrams a day of that and after 24 years, it just doesn’t work anymore,” he said. “You resort to the next best cheaper thing, and that’s heroin.”

After spending six months in jail, Santore began participating in the VA Medical Center’s Veteran Justice Outreach program in 2015. Veterans Affairs started the initiative in 2009 and works in collaboration with Lackawanna County Veterans Treatment Court to help incarcerated veterans and those who have been recently released from prison to transition back into society.

The program helps with assistance in finding jobs, housing and repairing damaged relationships through counseling. There are currently 105 veterans participating in the program, which can last 18 months or longer.

Social workers from the VA and probation officers from Lackawanna County also work with veterans who have issues with drug and alcohol abuse to keep them off of drugs and out of prison.

“What helped me is supervision from my probation officer to my case managers down there,” said Santore while sitting outside the VA Medical Center in Plains Township. “All these people genuinely cared to help me, which I never had happen before.”
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More to story after arrest of Deputy for bank robbery

"A former Davidson County deputy accused of bank robbery worked security there prior to robbery" on Salisbury Post headline may begin the judgement of this man, but there is so much more to the story.

"Jeffrey Dean Athey, 51, entered the F and M Bank at 418 W. Main St. about 3:35 p.m. on Feb. 6 and showed a Glock 41 semi-automatic handgun. He requested $1,000 and then left the bank."

He is accused of robbing the bank he worked for. Think about that one. Top that off with he only wanted $1,000 and knew exactly what the penalty would be for that. Why would he choose to do it there?

After hearing of the news, Davidson County Sheriff David Grice terminated Athey the same afternoon. He’s worked for the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office for a number of years, left to work for the private military company formerly known as Blackwater, and then returned to the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office.

He not only joined law enforcement, he worked for a defense contractor.

Court documents show Athey was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He recently married and lived with his wife and her two children.

Was this a scream for help? He had 2 jobs plus a new family. If this was not a man who was willing to risk his life, but change it for the better as well, it would be easy to just pass it off as a good guy gone bad. Taken everything into consideration, now we know there is so much more to this story.