The Secret History of the VA's Tragedies in Tomah and Phoenix
Excerpts from
AFTER THIRTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD ARMY VETERAN STEVE TOMPKINS CAME home early one April evening in 2014, it didn't take much to set him off when he started arguing with his second wife in their home in South Charleston, West Virginia. (Tompkins's name has been changed to protect his privacy.) The hulking six-foot-four, 350-pound man was bloated and a bit dazed from the high dosages of all the Seroquel, Depakote, Lithium and other drugs his doctors had thrown at him ( What the hell the AMA was doing when people go around writing theses words) for nearly a decade since he returned from his final tour of Iraq ( Only the mental Health doctors are responsible not BUSH Cheney or that lying coward Collin Powell), but the medications couldn't quiet the depression, anger and the murderous thoughts that could explode at any time. He had been waiting for weeks to get into the specialized PTSD sixty-day unit at the Clarksburg Hospital, and could barely take all the strains in his life anymore: the fights with his ex-wife over visiting rights with his teenage kids, his despair and the stress of being constantly broke with two young children. "I was overwhelmed," he recalls. "All I was doing was throwing out red flags." So when his wife, Jolene, told him they didn't have $40 to pay someone to cut their overgrown lawn, and added that he shouldn't have spent $200 on a wood lathe, a dark cloud of rage and anguish gripped him. "I can't take this pain anymore," he declared, hurrying up the stairs to get the guns. Tompkins moved quickly and methodically, changing into black fatigues for his final mission. He strapped on a green Army chest rig and jammed in seven extra thirty-bullet magazines to go with the AR-15 assault rifle and the .40- and .45-caIiber pistols that he grabbed from his personal armory of two dozen rifles and guns; he also attached a pouch to his belt to hold even more semiautomatic rounds. His wife, their two-year-old girl and their six-year-old boy started crying when he came down the stairs and ordered them out of the house. Jolene refused, knowing that if they left, he would surely kill himself and take out anyone who tried to stop him. As they were arguing, his ex-wife called from Georgia to remind him that his
thirteen-year-old son's birthday was the next day. He asked his son to come to the phone and he told him, "Hey buddy, I'll see you on the flip side in Valhalla." His ex-wife, picking up on the farewell to his son, immediately began crying and hung up the phone. Then she called the South Charleston police emergency line. About five squad cars were dispatched. The police cars pulled up outside, the cops got out of their cars and took cover, ready to train their guns on Tompkins if he stepped out of the house. Inside, Tompkins was still urging his family to leave when Lt. Guy Amburgey, a military veteran and a skilled negotiator, called the Tompkins home, got Jolene on the phone, and tried to convince her to leave, with Tompkins following—unarmed. "He's not going to do that," she said, as recounted in the police report, and she didn't agree to leave, either. Tompkins stood nearby, looking out the window and waiting for the right moment to rush out and start shooting, willing to go out in a hail of bullets rather than go to jail or keep on living with his PTSD and unending misery. Finally, he warily got on the phone with Amburgey, who said he wanted to help Tompkins and his family, but needed him to come outside. "Do you believe a man is as good as his word?" Amburgey asked, veteran to veteran. Tompkins agreed, and Amburgey vowed that he wouldn't be put in a
"Do you believe a man is as good as his word?" Amburgey asked, veteran to veteran. Tompkins agreed, and Amburgey vowed that he wouldn't be put in a police van, but would be taken in an ambulance to a hospital. As Tompkins waited impatiently, Amburgey, talking to him with his cell phone in hand, approached the front door from the side of the house. Tompkins agreed to come out, but only if guns weren't pointed at him. As Tompkins stepped out onto the porch, arms raised, the police officers on the street started shouting commands and leveling their guns at him. Feeling betrayed, the veteran shouted, "Let's end this. Fuck you all!" At that, Amburgey whipped around to face his fellow officers and pumped his arm downward, shouting, "Put your fucking weapons down!" The two of them then resumed their negotiations and Tompkins agreed to walk to the side of the house to meet Amburgey, but not before he pulled up his shirt to show that he didn't have bullets strapped to his chest or any weapons on him. The lieutenant patted him down and found the pouch with the magazine rounds. Amburgey asked him to walk to the end of his sidewalk, sit down and wait for the medics. At that point, Tompkins, who was as tough as anyone when he was an MI tank crew member fighting in Iraq, began to cry. "I've been trying for
weeks to get help there and everything is full," he moaned. "It's too bad it takes something like this to get help." More than a year later, he was still waiting for admission to the special PTSD inpatient program. THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW OF THE STORY OF STEVE TOMPKINS—AND THE roughly 30 percent of all Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam vets treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) who have PTSD—is simple: Their lives would be vastly improved if there were only enough funds available so that these troubled vets could get access to the specialized care, cutting-edge medications and psychiatric care they deserve without facing long waiting lists. The VA's mental health funding, in fact, increased more than 40 percent between 2009 and 2016 to $7.4 billion a year, and thousands of new
clinicians were added. Even so, reform advocates believe that the shortage of funding for our nation's mental health system is at the root of a broader crisis—usually without acknowledging the prevalence of low quality and sometimes deadly care. For example, as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) declares, "Services are often unavailable or inaccessible for those who need them the most." To be sure, access to affordable and trained mental health providers—from social workers to psychiatrists—remains woefully lacking: a stunning 55 percent of American counties, all rural, don't have a single mental health professional, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The shocking arrival of Donald Trump's presidency, of course, presents an even broader barrier to mental health care. The best-known roadblock, obviously, is the potential stripping of health insurance from about twenty- three million Americans as part of the Republican drive to "repeal and replace" key features of Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This goal was at the heart of the Republican bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives in May 2017. By the summer of 2017, the Republican's American Health Care Act
According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 including interest.
So! after the war what happens to the veterans?
OVER MEDICATION HAD SURELY KILLED REBECCA RILEY, OTHER FORLORN children and anonymous nursing home patients. After a burst of local headlines, one could have hoped that there would have been a cry for justice and genuine safeguards. But that crackdown never happened. Instead, over the years, no one paid much attention to a wave of preventable deaths and harm caused by irresponsible, unchecked prescribing across the country. That started to change in early 2015, following the news that more than thirty patients had died needlessly at the VA hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin, that came to be known as "Candy Land." This and other VA scandals are emblematic of the nation's entire mental health system. The documents, hearings and investigative articles exposing the array of VA scandals have offered the most detailed behind- the-scenes look at failed mental health care since the abuses of the state mental hospitals came to light over sixty years ago, "
"President Trump, administration health officials and Republican leaders have shown by word and deed their clear intentions to undermine both Medicaid and the ACA by any means at their command. "The best thing we can do politically is let Obamacare explode," Trump told reporters on the same day that the first repeal effort failed. "It's imploding, and soon will explode, and it's not going to be pretty."
Excerpts from
Mental Health Inc: How Corruption, Lax Oversight and Failed Reforms Endanger ...
By Art LevineAFTER THIRTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD ARMY VETERAN STEVE TOMPKINS CAME home early one April evening in 2014, it didn't take much to set him off when he started arguing with his second wife in their home in South Charleston, West Virginia. (Tompkins's name has been changed to protect his privacy.) The hulking six-foot-four, 350-pound man was bloated and a bit dazed from the high dosages of all the Seroquel, Depakote, Lithium and other drugs his doctors had thrown at him ( What the hell the AMA was doing when people go around writing theses words) for nearly a decade since he returned from his final tour of Iraq ( Only the mental Health doctors are responsible not BUSH Cheney or that lying coward Collin Powell), but the medications couldn't quiet the depression, anger and the murderous thoughts that could explode at any time. He had been waiting for weeks to get into the specialized PTSD sixty-day unit at the Clarksburg Hospital, and could barely take all the strains in his life anymore: the fights with his ex-wife over visiting rights with his teenage kids, his despair and the stress of being constantly broke with two young children. "I was overwhelmed," he recalls. "All I was doing was throwing out red flags." So when his wife, Jolene, told him they didn't have $40 to pay someone to cut their overgrown lawn, and added that he shouldn't have spent $200 on a wood lathe, a dark cloud of rage and anguish gripped him. "I can't take this pain anymore," he declared, hurrying up the stairs to get the guns. Tompkins moved quickly and methodically, changing into black fatigues for his final mission. He strapped on a green Army chest rig and jammed in seven extra thirty-bullet magazines to go with the AR-15 assault rifle and the .40- and .45-caIiber pistols that he grabbed from his personal armory of two dozen rifles and guns; he also attached a pouch to his belt to hold even more semiautomatic rounds. His wife, their two-year-old girl and their six-year-old boy started crying when he came down the stairs and ordered them out of the house. Jolene refused, knowing that if they left, he would surely kill himself and take out anyone who tried to stop him. As they were arguing, his ex-wife called from Georgia to remind him that his
thirteen-year-old son's birthday was the next day. He asked his son to come to the phone and he told him, "Hey buddy, I'll see you on the flip side in Valhalla." His ex-wife, picking up on the farewell to his son, immediately began crying and hung up the phone. Then she called the South Charleston police emergency line. About five squad cars were dispatched. The police cars pulled up outside, the cops got out of their cars and took cover, ready to train their guns on Tompkins if he stepped out of the house. Inside, Tompkins was still urging his family to leave when Lt. Guy Amburgey, a military veteran and a skilled negotiator, called the Tompkins home, got Jolene on the phone, and tried to convince her to leave, with Tompkins following—unarmed. "He's not going to do that," she said, as recounted in the police report, and she didn't agree to leave, either. Tompkins stood nearby, looking out the window and waiting for the right moment to rush out and start shooting, willing to go out in a hail of bullets rather than go to jail or keep on living with his PTSD and unending misery. Finally, he warily got on the phone with Amburgey, who said he wanted to help Tompkins and his family, but needed him to come outside. "Do you believe a man is as good as his word?" Amburgey asked, veteran to veteran. Tompkins agreed, and Amburgey vowed that he wouldn't be put in a
"Do you believe a man is as good as his word?" Amburgey asked, veteran to veteran. Tompkins agreed, and Amburgey vowed that he wouldn't be put in a police van, but would be taken in an ambulance to a hospital. As Tompkins waited impatiently, Amburgey, talking to him with his cell phone in hand, approached the front door from the side of the house. Tompkins agreed to come out, but only if guns weren't pointed at him. As Tompkins stepped out onto the porch, arms raised, the police officers on the street started shouting commands and leveling their guns at him. Feeling betrayed, the veteran shouted, "Let's end this. Fuck you all!" At that, Amburgey whipped around to face his fellow officers and pumped his arm downward, shouting, "Put your fucking weapons down!" The two of them then resumed their negotiations and Tompkins agreed to walk to the side of the house to meet Amburgey, but not before he pulled up his shirt to show that he didn't have bullets strapped to his chest or any weapons on him. The lieutenant patted him down and found the pouch with the magazine rounds. Amburgey asked him to walk to the end of his sidewalk, sit down and wait for the medics. At that point, Tompkins, who was as tough as anyone when he was an MI tank crew member fighting in Iraq, began to cry. "I've been trying for
weeks to get help there and everything is full," he moaned. "It's too bad it takes something like this to get help." More than a year later, he was still waiting for admission to the special PTSD inpatient program. THE CONVENTIONAL VIEW OF THE STORY OF STEVE TOMPKINS—AND THE roughly 30 percent of all Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam vets treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) who have PTSD—is simple: Their lives would be vastly improved if there were only enough funds available so that these troubled vets could get access to the specialized care, cutting-edge medications and psychiatric care they deserve without facing long waiting lists. The VA's mental health funding, in fact, increased more than 40 percent between 2009 and 2016 to $7.4 billion a year, and thousands of new
clinicians were added. Even so, reform advocates believe that the shortage of funding for our nation's mental health system is at the root of a broader crisis—usually without acknowledging the prevalence of low quality and sometimes deadly care. For example, as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) declares, "Services are often unavailable or inaccessible for those who need them the most." To be sure, access to affordable and trained mental health providers—from social workers to psychiatrists—remains woefully lacking: a stunning 55 percent of American counties, all rural, don't have a single mental health professional, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The shocking arrival of Donald Trump's presidency, of course, presents an even broader barrier to mental health care. The best-known roadblock, obviously, is the potential stripping of health insurance from about twenty- three million Americans as part of the Republican drive to "repeal and replace" key features of Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This goal was at the heart of the Republican bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives in May 2017. By the summer of 2017, the Republican's American Health Care Act
According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion by 2017 including interest.
So! after the war what happens to the veterans?
OVER MEDICATION HAD SURELY KILLED REBECCA RILEY, OTHER FORLORN children and anonymous nursing home patients. After a burst of local headlines, one could have hoped that there would have been a cry for justice and genuine safeguards. But that crackdown never happened. Instead, over the years, no one paid much attention to a wave of preventable deaths and harm caused by irresponsible, unchecked prescribing across the country. That started to change in early 2015, following the news that more than thirty patients had died needlessly at the VA hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin, that came to be known as "Candy Land." This and other VA scandals are emblematic of the nation's entire mental health system. The documents, hearings and investigative articles exposing the array of VA scandals have offered the most detailed behind- the-scenes look at failed mental health care since the abuses of the state mental hospitals came to light over sixty years ago, "
"President Trump, administration health officials and Republican leaders have shown by word and deed their clear intentions to undermine both Medicaid and the ACA by any means at their command. "The best thing we can do politically is let Obamacare explode," Trump told reporters on the same day that the first repeal effort failed. "It's imploding, and soon will explode, and it's not going to be pretty."
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