I am a Senator from the state of California. I currently serve on the Armed Services and National Services Committee. The title of my Bill is S. 2487: Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Act My bill is made to inform the people of Veterans Affair to recognise mental health care and suicide prevention programs that are successful in treating women veterans as part of the judgement of such programs by the Administrator, and for other purposes. It is important that we make this bill into a law because it helps us monitor our soldiers who feel suicidal after the events they have been through. Sadly, many service members, Veterans, their families, survivors and other civilians struggle to cope effectively with life’s difficulties, as I did.
The bill was written by Sen. Gordon Smith in response to being directly impacted by the tragedy of suicide while holding office. His son Garrett Smith committed suicide at age 22 when he was a student at Utah Valley University. Thus, his father became a political stakeholder in the promotion of suicide prevention (Colburn, 2004). During the time leading up to the GLSMA, there was an increased amount of attention on the issue of suicide on a federal level. The program was primarily developed in response to President George W. Bush’s New Freedom Commission Report that was released in 2003, titled Transforming Mental Health Care in America. This report asserted that suicide was a major public health issue in the United States that was not receiving proper attention (Goldston et al., 2010). Another major influence on the development of the GLSMA was the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (2001), which was a plan for public and private collaboration to reduce risk associated with suicide and suicidal behaviors, highlighting the suicide prevention needs of the adolescents and young adults (Goldston et al., 2010). This plan influenced an overall shift in ideology in terms of suicide prevention, which is described in a later section. Overall, due to the lack of suicide prevention initiatives in the United States, it seemed as though political entities were in
I can only stress the importance of this topic so much. I can keep going on about how important it is to do something, but that won’t get us the change we need. We need society, the government, and especially the Department of Veteran affairs to work together. This will be an issue that will be going and going for years to come. But I do believe that there is something that can be done to improve this issue.
Veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder need to receive better care, because post traumatic stress disorder is curable, damages relationships, and veterans made many dramatic sacrifices. The health care for veterans needs to be more easily accessible.
Veteran homelessness must be attacked at multiple levels in order to ensure that it does not turn into a revolving door. So beyond simply providing temporary housing support we will also have to improve our veteran’s lives for the long-term. This entails treatment for their PTSD by providing them with access to health and wellness clinics, recovery resources, peer support groups, and individual counseling. (Note: Key information from HYPERLINK "http://www.voail.org" http://www.voail.org).
the psychological health of police, fire, and ambulance officers.” International Journal of Stress Management, Vol. 11, pp. 227-44.
Suicide of Vietnam Veterans The deaths that were experienced in Vietnam due to Agent Orange and other jungle diseases have become well known by the general public. However, it is suicide that has resulted in the deaths of over 150,000 Vietnam soldiers during and after the war. An enormous amount of suicides resulted from what most people call “protecting our country”.
Suicides among U.S military members, both active and reserve, have become increasingly common as shown in Figure 3. Beginning after the...
A survey of OEF/OIF Veterans identified major rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, alcohol-related problems, social and family problems, and suicidal behavior. However the most alarming statistic is not about deployment rates or rates of diagnoses, the most alarming fact is that fewer than 10% of those diagnosed with PTSD or depression have received the recommended the mental health treatment upon re-integration into society. The dropout rate at the Veterans Association (VA) PTSD clinics is distressingly high as well when looking into VA records it was found that 68% of OEF/OIF Veterans dropped out of their prescribed counseling and programs prior to completion (Garcia et al., 2014). Because most of these men were deployed mul...
Today's society is now introduced to one of the most controversial issues; assisted suicide. Just like in other controversial arguments, there are many people that feel that it is wrong for people to ask their healthcare provider to end one's life; while others feel that if the person is terminally ill and has given their will to die, that they can be assisted in suicide. Though both sides are reasonable many people believe that people should not take part in helping someone take their own life, assisted suicide should be legal because, it plays a factor of conquering one’s feelings, gives an option to those whom are terminally ill or in immense pain, and every human
They use medication and alcohol for sleeping because they obsess that enemies are coming, they need more consciousness to fight back.
In the article “Euthanasia, Physician-Assisted Suicide, and Other Medical Practices Involving the End of Life in the Netherlands, 1990–1995” written by Paul J. van der Maas, M.D., Ph.D., et al in The New England Journal of Medicine, all the research toward assisted suicide and Euthanasia is made known. The purpose of this paper was to have shown the changes in both statistics and percentiles of Euthanasia, and also in physician assisted suicide between the years 1990-1995. Not only does this document include the patients that independently make their own decisions, but also the patients who are unable to make sensible independent decisions due to their illness. The study consisted of about a year’s worth of interviews, about 410 took place in this jurisdiction. In this study, criteria were involved to be eligible. The criteria is to be a working MD in this facility for more than a year. The conclusion of this study, presented that Physician assisted suicide grew between 1990-1995 weather the patient used the prescribed
The American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is a non-profit organization that acknowledges suicide and mental health problems that are part of our society. By understanding this support can go to those in need of education and those who are at risk. Suicide affects a tremendous amount of people those who suffer from depression and their love ones, but with proper education and treatment it can prevent many from committing suicide. In fact according to Mental Health Business Week “Each year in the United States, suicide claims over 40,000 lives - more than war, murder, and natural disasters combined…Suicide is not just a faceless health issue for our society - it affects real people” (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention 60). Therefore organizations like The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention were established to assist. The AFSP was founded in 1987, which is one of the leaders in fighting against suicide by offering research, education, and supports to those individuals and their families that are affected by suicide.
Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is a very tough topic to assess in the medical field. This form of so-called treatment is performed all around the world. The physician can prescribe a medication to a patient of a dosage that would end up taking their life. It is completely up to the patient to do the rest. It is not legal in the state of Alabama and not really anywhere other than a handful of places. There are a lot of different views on this topic, why or why not it should be legalized. Some people believe that this act should be a felony. I, on the other hand, believe that if a patient wants an out of all their pain and suffering then they should be allowed to have the right to do so.
Suicide, it's not pretty. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's the
“Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain” (I-10). Ending a life is a big step in the wrong direction for most. Suicide is the killing of oneself. Suicide happens every day, and every day a family’s life changes. Something needs to be done to raise awareness of that startling fact.