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Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after President Obama signed into law H.R. 5325, which included a Gosar authored provision requiring the Veterans Crisis Line to provide an immediate response from a trained professional to veterans contacting this suicide hotline:
“With over 500,000 calls received in 2015, the Veterans Crisis Line has proven to be an invaluable resource for saving the lives of our nation’s veterans. At a time when we are losing 22 veterans every single day to suicide, it is simply unacceptable for calls to go unanswered. Ensuring that every single veteran can rely on a trained professional to immediately help them during dark times is literally a matter of life and death. I’m extremely pleased to see my legislative effort to improve the Veterans Crisis Line become law and hope this life-saving resource for our nation’s heroes will now function as Congress intended.”
Background:
The full text of Congressman’s original appropriation’s language request to ensure the Veterans Crisis Line provides immediate assistance can be found HERE.
H.R. 5325 provides full year appropriations for the FY2017 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act. This bill includes Section 238, the Gosar authored provision which is now law, which requires the Veterans Crisis Line to provide an immediate response from a trained professional to veterans contacting this suicide hotline.
According to David Shulkin, the VA’s undersecretary for heath, “the crisis line dispatched emergency responders an average of 30 times a day last year and made 80,000 referrals to suicide prevention coordinators.” The toll-free hotline number is 800-273-8255.
On February 11, 2016, the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (IG) released Report No. 14-03540-123, an investigation into concerns raised about the Veterans Crisis Line. That report produced some troubling findings including “that some calls routed to crisis backup centers went into a voicemail system and that the Veterans Crisis Line and backup center staff did not always offer immediate assistance to callers…These incidents involved responders allegedly ending calls without providing assistance, inappropriately transferring calls, and telling callers to contact another organization…In addition, [the IG] found that callers could be placed on hold in a backup center queue or be passed through several backup centers for an unknown period of time, which could account for the perception that the calls were not answered.”
The Veterans Crisis Line website clearly states, “When you call the Veterans Crisis Line, use the online chat, or send a text message, you will receive direct, immediate support from a trained VA responder.” Inclusion of the language contained in this programmatic request will ensure that promise is honored.
The 32 bipartisan cosponsors that submitted the Gosar authored provision to the Appropriations Committee and asked for inclusion in the base bill include: Paul Gosar*, Dina Titus*, Brian Babin, Lois Capps, Matt Cartwright, David Cicilline, Curt Clawson, Peter DeFazio, John Delaney, Mark DeSauliner, Ted Deutch, Debbie Dingell, Keith Ellison, Chris Gibson, Mike Honda, Walter Jones, Robin Kelly, Ron Kind, Doug Lamborn, Leonard Lance, Sheila Jackson Lee, Tom Marino, Thomas Massie, Pete Olson, Beto O’Rourke, Chellie Pingree, Mark Pocan, Loretta Sanchez, Niki Tsongas, Marc Veasey, Frederica Wilson and Lee Zeldin.
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