BIXBY, Okla. — The Department of Veterans Affairs says recent data shows that 17 veterans die by suicide every day. And out of those 17, 11 of them were not connected to VA care. But a new program is working to combat veteran suicides.
“It’s a new program that started by Eastern Oklahoma VA Healthcare System to where we work with community partners, and social workers," says Trent Neffendorf, the Chief of Police for Eastern Oklahoma VA. "And we go out to the veteran's residence if we have a veteran that’s in need of assistance and they can't get into the clinic."
It's called a mental health evaluation team. The team will deploy a VA police officer and a licensed mental health clinician to respond to calls with local law enforcement. The Bixby Police Department is one of them Bixby officer, Seth Adcock says most of the calls he’s responded to were crisis calls.
“The times I’ve witnessed it firsthand, these veterans were in crisis and wanting to take their own life and we were able to talk them down,” says Officer Adcock.
The team also conducts welfare checks and follows-up with calls and visits. Officer Adcock says he and the VA want to get the word out about this program so more veterans who need help, can get it.
“The veteran was out of medicine, and the hospital wasn’t giving him the medicine because he needed to see his doctor first,” says Officer Adcock.
"Unfortunately, his doctor appointment was 3 months away. They were able to talk to his doctor while they were there with him and get him the medication the next day that he needed.”
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