[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 1618]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         CLAY HUNT SUICIDE PREVENTION FOR AMERICAN VETERANS ACT

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am a proud cosponsor of the Clay Hunt 
Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act and am pleased my 
colleagues chose to support it unanimously. The bill is designed to 
help reduce--and hopefully eliminate--veteran suicides by improving 
access to and quality of mental health care for veterans.
  An estimated 22 veterans a day take their own lives. That is twice as 
high as the general population. Veterans of all ages and from all wars 
are affected by conditions that can contribute to depression and 
thoughts of suicide. We are learning more and more, for example, about 
how common post-traumatic stress disorder is among our returning 
heroes. PTSD can surface years--even decades--after a veteran was in 
combat. It is one of many factors that contribute to this disheartening 
problem.
  The number of suicides is disproportionately high, however, for 
veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Young men and women just 
out of the service and receiving health care from the government 
committed suicide at nearly three times the rate of active-duty troops 
in 2012. We have to work harder to make sure our heroes have access to 
the help they need.
  The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act will 
create a peer support and community outreach pilot program to connect 
transitioning service members with programs that could help them. The 
bill will create a pilot program to repay the loan debt of psychiatry 
students so it is easier to recruit them to work at the VA. It also 
will improve the accountability of VA mental health and suicide-
prevention programs by requiring an annual evaluation.
  Today, in a bipartisan fashion, the Senate said we need to do more to 
make sure our heroes have access to the assistance they need. I hope 
the step we took here today helps many veterans regain a path to 
wellness and happiness.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I rise today to commend my colleagues for 
swift passage of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans 
Act. This act will build upon the Veterans Choice Act and put in place 
needed measures to improve responsiveness, reporting, oversight and 
accountability for mental health outreach, intervention, treatment, and 
counseling in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Sometimes the 
greatest hurdle for ailing veterans is just getting started. There is 
nothing more frustrating and potentially demoralizing and debilitating 
for a veteran in crisis to seek mental health care from the VA and be 
told he will have to wait weeks or months for an appointment because VA 
facilities lack sufficient personnel with an expertise in psychiatric 
medicine to provide timely care. Left to fend on their own, many 
veterans become depressed and feel powerless, some resort to high-risk 
behaviors, from isolation, self-medication with alcohol and 
prescription drugs, to suicide.
  This bill authorizes a pilot program to expand the VA's capacity to 
help repay loans incurred by individuals who are eligible to practice 
psychiatric medicine and agree to serve the VA in that field. In doing 
so, we recognize that serving veterans is a noble cause that some are 
called to, but working in such a demanding field requires economic 
incentives, especially in areas where abundant career options exist or 
in more remote locales, where attracting talent is difficult for the 
VA.
  The Clay Hunt Act also facilitates greater veteran's access through a 
consolidated interactive website, where veterans can visit from the 
privacy of their own home or wherever they may be when the need arises.
  Most importantly, the bill directs VA to establish a pilot program 
for community-based support networks in the VA's Integrated Service 
Networks to ease the transition of veterans and provide peer-based 
support for those who are encountering difficulties coping with those 
life changes. These community outreach teams at each medical center 
will be aimed at getting care to the point of need with the least 
amount of delay and help those veterans who are unwilling or unable to 
seek professional help on their own.
  Make no mistake, the suicides of our veterans are preventable with 
the right intervention and proper continuum of care. When a veteran 
takes their own life due to untreated mental pain, it is a stark and 
sobering sign that somewhere, someone who loved them was unable to 
reach them and recognize the warning signs to help or that the veteran 
just couldn't carry a heavy burden any longer and found stability or 
some greater peace and solace elusive. It is at these moments, with 
nowhere to turn and perhaps no one to trust, that some of our veterans 
want to escape life. The sooner we can fully transform the VA into a 
place where veterans in crisis at any time can find access to 
caregivers and peers ready to light the path to a better place in our 
society, the better outcomes we will see and the surer we will be that 
the promises we have made to them are being kept.

                          ____________________