Tag: suicide prevention

The Story: T-Mobile, part of the Deutsche Telecom empire, has acted in support for a new emergency number being instituted by the US FCC. The...

A 2015 measure that required officials to provide annual reviews of mental health care and suicide prevention programs has found that veterans often receive good mental health care at many Department of Veterans Affairs centers — but that has not decreased suicide rates. Since the department in 2017 began tracking suicides at Veterans Affairs facilities — among the most high-profile of veteran suicides — there have been more than 260 suicide attempts, 240 of which have been interrupted, department officials say. Although Veterans Affairs officials blamed miscommunication at the time, Keita Franklin, the department’s new executive director of suicide prevention, said that the program had been delayed to come up with a more targeted marketing campaign, called #BeThere. In comparison, breast cancer will receive about $709 million in research funding and $243 million is expected to be spent this year researching prostate cancer. “However, we have not had comparable research into suicide.” Guns are used in the majority of veteran suicides, in large part because gun ownership is high for that group. Last year, about 80 percent of suicides among veterans in Montana were by firearms, said Claire R. Oakley, the director of health promotion at RiverStone Health, a community provider attached to the Mayor’s Challenge in Billings, Mont., which has had among the highest rates of suicide in the nation. “By reducing access to firearms you see a drop right away,” said Jane Pearson, chairwoman of the Suicide Research Consortium at the National Institute of Mental Health. The Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention, for instance, works through 10 regional coalitions to provide veterans with mental health services as well as things like entrepreneurship training. and community providers; providers outside the system have varied forms of insurance coverage. “The issue is the challenge in our health care system with people jumping from one system to another.” The Mayor’s and Governor’s Challenges — which team governments with community health care providers to better reach and service veterans — show promise in connecting veterans to needed services inside and outside the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Talinda Bennington talks about losing her husband, Chester Bennington, to suicide during CNN's special report "Finding Hope: Battling America's Suicide Crisis." If you or someone you know needs help, call the national suicide hotline: 1-800-273-TALK.