Number Of Calls To Veterans' Suicide Hotline Going Unanswered Drops Dramatically

A report issued in March found that 30 percent of calls were either being rolled over to a back-up service or not being answered at all. That number has dropped to less than 1 percent.

Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said there has been a sharp decline in the number of veterans who can't get through when they call the department's suicide hotline. A report from the Office of the Inspector General published in March that found nearly a third of calls to the VA crisis hotline were being forwarded to an outside service or just not being answered. (Firozi, 4/24)

In other news on veterans' health care —

The Department of Veterans Affairs prescribes Joshua Lee a lot of pills – 9,828 a year by his count ... Reached for a response, VA spokesman James Hutton, said there was no way the agency could prescribe marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law. But the VA has been quietly researching marijuana’s viability as a treatment. (Glantz, 4/25)

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