Last week, the bipartisan Support for Suicide Prevention Coordinators Act was introduced by Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), and co-sponsored by Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Mike Bost (R-Ill.). As a woman who served three tours, I breathed a sigh of relief seeing Congress step up and take action to begin to address our nation’s worsening crisis of not properly treating veterans with PTSD which has led to an epidemic of suicides.
The bill will require a review of the current training, workload and staffing at Veterans Affairs centers and comes a month after President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “National Initiative to Empower Veterans and End Veterans Suicide.” According to the White House, this order mandates the establishment of the Veteran Wellness, Empowerment and Suicide Prevention Task Force. The task force will include the secretaries of Defense, Health and Human Services, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor, Education and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, assistant to the president for national security affairs, and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
What is post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD? It’s a psychiatric condition in people who experienced or witnessed a traumatic event like a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, war, Read more
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