Veteran Commits Suicide Hours After Being Turned Away At VA Facility – Rest In Peace

[yuiyoshida]

A former Marine and Army National Guardsmen killed himself after being denied admittance to a VA facility in Iowa City, despite telling doctors that he was having “serious mental issues.”

Brandon Ketchum, 33, killed himself only a few hours after being turned down at the Iowa City VA Medical Center on July 7th. He made an emergency appointment with the facility and spoke to doctors about his struggle.

Ketchum had been struggling with PTSD and substance abuse after returning home from his three tours overseas. He had deployed twice to Iraq as a Marine combat engineer where his job was to clear roadside explosives. He also served once in Afghanistan in the Army National Guard.

After getting turned away, Ketchum created a post on social media.

“I requested that I get admitted to 9W (psychiatric ward) and get things straightened out,” he wrote on Facebook. “I truly felt my safety and health were in jeopardy, as I discussed with the doc. Not only did I get a ‘NO’, but three reasons of no based on me being not f***** up enough. At this point I say, ‘why even try anymore?’ They gave up on me, so why shouldn’t I give up on myself? Right now, that is the only viable option given my circumstances and frame of mind.”

http://americanmilitarynews.com/2016/07/veteran-commits-suicide-hours-after-being-turned-away-at-va-facility-rest-in-peace/?utm_source=davidwebb&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=alt

[think]

1. This is just heart breaking. No one who seeks help of this nature should ever be turned away.

If someone is seeking help there is a problem!

[avaistheone1]

4. Yes, I think that is even more true when a man asked for psychiatric help.

Men find it especially difficult to request this kind of help.

[think]

6. Agree. There are many stigmas and this is one of them. If someone takes the courage to come forward

they need to be taken seriously.

[avaistheone1]

9. I thought that normal protocol in the psychiatric field was when someone identifies themselves, it is

it was automatically assumed they need help. Guess not at least in this case. So sad this was an unnecessary death.

[emulatorloo]

2. How horrible and how terribly sad

[avaistheone1]

3. WTF? Unacceptable.

RIP

[MattP]

5. Why does it seem so difficult to 5150 yourself?

The bed shortage is out of control

[beveeheart]

7. This makes me so sad - for him

and so ANGRY at the VA, and Congress for not allocating more $$$ to help our vets.

[Basic LA]

8. There's an administrative wall between veterans & doctors.

In my years using the VA, the medical professionals, inside, are great once you finally at long last get in to the see them. But those administrators manning the desk outside can be impenetrable. It's so easy to finally give up trying to get through.

[merrily]

10. Sobbing

Crap, a private hospital doesn't discharge you until you can manage and someone comes to pick you up. And, if you can't manage, they discharge you to a nursing home.

Privatization of government functions should be avoided in my opinion. But we cannot keep having people die while the VA gets its act together. Go to a hybrid system. You call the VA. If they can't take you, they HAVE to find a private hospital or appropriate doctor who will. And it has to be on the same terms as the VA service, with government picking up the cost.

Meanwhile, you're getting the VA to where it needs to be, with a separate team. Also, stop putting military people in charge of the VA. That's not expertise to run a hospital system. That's expertise to be a patient in a VA hospital. Put a professional hospital administrator in charge of the VA and another in charge of the VA improvement team.

Money. If we have the unimaginable amounts to put our troops in harm's way and keep there "for the duration" and to build Green Zones and bridges and keep rebuilding them when they get blown up we have the money to treat the people we put in harm's way.

This is also frustrating because it reinforces the idea that government cannot do anything. We withhold funding from federal entities--certain ones, anyway--and they we say, "They're incompetent. Privatize."

[Victor_c3]

11. That's a bunch of shit

Fortunately I've found the opposite to be true. Given a history of suicide attempts in the past, the VA is quick to commit me to their psych wards when I mention anything that is the slightest bit alarming to them.

I've built a great relationship and I trust my treatment team at the VA. I prefer not to be locked up, but it's not really that bad in the psych ward. It gives my family peace of mind and to me it is a break from life and other stresses.

Im terribly saddened by accounts like this. Some VA healthcare is phenomenal. I wish this was true across the board.

[The River]

12. The VA is Very Responsive

Any system as large as the VA is going to have both
small failures and tragedies like this. Nothings perfect.
That said 99.9% of the time it's a class A op.