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A key House committee chairman is calling on the Veterans Affairs Department to skip the step of appointing a blue-ribbon commission on soldier suicides and instead take "immediate action" to provide every service member with a mental health evaluation on discharge.

"The VA can set up five commissions, yet the real problem goes unresolved," said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. "We all know that convening meetings to study an issue in order to formulate a report to offer recommendations is not actions."

On Wednesday, VA Secretary James Peake appointed a working group on suicide prevention with five members drawn from the Defense and Health and Human Services departments. The panel is slated to make recommendations on how the VA can improve its programs in suicide prevention, research and education.

This government panel, Peake said, will be aided by a nine-member panel made up of experts from universities across the country. "There is nothing more tragic than the death by suicide of even one of the great men or women who have served this nation," Peake said. He added that the VA is committed "to doing all we can to improve our understanding of a complicated issue that is also a national concern."

But the VA had downplayed veteran suicide attempts until last month, according to an internal e-mail produced in a federal trial in San Francisco last month related to a lawsuit brought by two veterans groups. The groups want a judge to compel the VA to provide better mental health care for all veterans.

Earlier this month, Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, told reporters at an annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington that it was possible that "suicides and psychiatric mortality...could trump combat deaths" in ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Filner said, "veterans cannot wait -- and should not have to wait -- for a blue ribbon panel to come out yet again with another report," and called on the VA to evaluate every service member at discharge for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

The VA panel will meet June 11-13 and is scheduled to deliver its report to Peake within 15 days.

COMMENTS

• the real problem is not with the VA but with the lack of funding and staunch position of not providing anything that will help the deploying or returning veteran. all the money is going to War funding; there's nothing left and i believe there's a real effort to ensure that people in the system/getting out of the system are to get nothing or less than was promised. This Republican administration is the problem and it's got to change. Don't give them another 4 years. If not, you're going to be blogging about these same problems and issues 4 years from now. Vote Obama! Nancy Posted September 5, 2008 12:22 PM
• What are NOT needed are meetings to discuss the situation and to come up with a plan. This matter in its entirety should have been resolved and a matrix developed ages ago by the VA. Essentially, the VA is dragging its feet dealing with this highly volatile unsettled situation, which needs something done NOW, not weeks/months/years down the road. Just how many more soldiers do we need to lose before a fire is lit under the VA making them take their responsibilities more genuinely, earnestly, intently and sincerely? If the current administration at VA cannot perform this function, then they should be removed and personnel willing to take a more active rather than reactive approach should be placed at the helm. CAE Posted May 28, 2008 9:33 AM
• as a Two Tour Vietnam Veterans diagnosed 27 years ago with PTSD I see the panel to study Suicides as another waste of money by the VA. They have studied everything to death and instead of doing their job and provide the services veterans need after they have been to war they just want to give the veteran drugs and sweep things like suicide under the rug and the same old rhetoric goes on and on. It is about time that the Congress put a stop to studying everytime we have a problem affecting our veterans and make them do what the congress has mandated them to do not study it to death instead of helping these veterans get back on their feet and get get on with their lives. Craig Close Posted May 27, 2008 11:06 PM