White House Takes Action on Vets' Mental Health

President Obama announced action Tuesday to address veterans' mental health issues as the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) prepared to release a report on problems at the VA's Phoenix facility.

In a speech Tuesday afternoon in Charlotte, N.C., before the American Legion, the president noted that part of improving veterans' healthcare involves "doing even more to help veterans from all wars who are struggling with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. And we have to end this tragedy of suicide among our troops and veterans."

We're expanding suicide prevention training across the military and the VA, so colleagues and clinicians can spot the warning signs and encourage our troops and veterans to seek help," Obama said. "We'll improve access to care, with more peer support - veterans counseling veterans - at VA hospitals and clinics."

In addition, "we're going to make it easier for service members being treated for mental health conditions to continue their care as they transition to the VA, automatically connecting them with the support they need [and] making sure they don't lose access to any medications they may be taking," he said.

Other actions announced by the White House on Tuesday included:

The Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health are starting a project aimed at early detection of suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury, as well as other related issues, among service members and veterans. In addition, the VA is launching a $34.4 million suicide prevention study involving 1,800 veterans at 29 VA hospitals.

The VA and defense department will provide new opportunities for service members, veterans, and their families to give back unwanted medications in order to reduce opportunities for abuse. Both departments will also take action to encourage firearm safety and reduce the risk of overdose.

To help community-based providers address the stressors that service members, veterans, and their families may experience during their time in the military, the defense department and VA will disseminate their existing military cultural competency training to 3,000 community mental health providers during 2015.

Obama also discussed the ongoing problems with veterans' access to care at the VA. Overall, he said, "once veterans get in the door, the care [they] receive from the VA is often very good. The specialized care is among the best in the world ... But what we've come to learn is that the misconduct we've seen at too many facilities - with long wait times, and veterans denied care, and folks cooking the books - is outrageous and inexcusable."

"Despite all the good work that the VA does every day ... we are very clear-eyed about the problems that are still there," he continued. "And those problems require us to regain the trust of our veterans, and live up to our vision of a VA that is more effective and more efficient and that truly puts veterans first. And I will not be satisfied until that happens."