Five long months ago we were assured that the mental health dilemma was all but over. Sixteen hundred new mental health workers were in the hiring pipeline and would be coming online after suitable training. Not.

Today I find in Tom Philpott’s column that not only are the fabled sixteen hundred not imminently to be employed, but that there is a dearth consisting of fifteen hundred existing  positions currently languishing for lack of experienced, trained personnel. These are jobs. Real jobs with paychecks attached to them. With a national unemployment rate averaging over 8%, I find it unconscionable that vA could allow this to continue.

As with any agency of government, they guard their turf jealously. Relinquishing any power would result in a loss of funding and this is anathema to the vA hierarchy. It’s simply not an option. To add insult to injury, one of our presidential candidates has advocated utilizing TRICARE’s available assets of  5,200 mental health workers to alleviate the backlog. While I consider it an admirable suggestion, it leapfrogs over the common sense question of what is ongoing at the vA. Simply shuffling Vets sideways into the TRICARE system puts a lot of stress on their program and does absolutely nothing long-term to solve the endemic problems and attendant suicide numbers.

I don’t need to tell you how that went over. When apprised of the idea, the general consensus among the grand poohbahs was panic followed by instructions to the PR flacks to put out the fire. With more than 20 Veterans and/or active duty personnel punching out prematurely every day, the obvious repair order is a more nuanced PR effort? Only in America and only at the vA.

The contretemps begins with the VSO/vA consortium. They are often the vA’s biggest fans and support much of the vA agenda for fear of alienating themselves from the process and losing their free office space at ROs everywhere. Can you imagine the head of the DAV pissing on vA’s parade? He and his organization would be persona non grata overnight and thousands of DAV representatives would find themselves on the sidewalk the next day. With 50 plus VSOs  chartered by Congress, office space outside the begging door at ROs is in high demand.  Therefore, looking to VSOs for succor in this mental health epidemic is futile.

Looking to Congress for solutions  seems  just as fruitless. With the deadlock between houses (and parties), virtually nothing can be passed without rancor and bridges to nowhere being attached to it.

The VHA (and our government)has one model to deal with these situations. It’s based on a long term plan. Simply put, gear up the hiring mechanism. Begin advertising and interviewing, Collect resumes and begin investigative processes. Finally, weed out the good from the marginal and reinterview these individuals. When the winnowing process is complete some time in 2013, the prospective candidates are AWOL. They’ve departed to other, guaranteed jobs available now-not some nebulous date in the unknown future. There is no flexibility built in to accommodate temporary phenomena. Hiring aggressively in a short term mode to plug gaps in certain identified problem localities is not in their lexicon. Look no further than the dichotomy of having three vacancies at the CAVC for years and years. No one even bothered to nominate any candidates. When they did get around to it, the Senate dawdled so long that those nominated moved on to other opportunities. Qualified, trained personnel cannot sit around waiting on Congress’ whim in interviewing and affirming them. Imagine leaving a seat or two (or three) vacant at the Supreme Court for several years. It’s inconceivable.

Similarly on the VBA side of the aisle, there is no plan for dealing with the backlog that continues to spiral out of control. New programs with catchy acronyms are all well and fine for their PR program but failing to actually employ them promptly eviscerates their usefulness. Or, after implementation, when it is discovered they are unavailing, excuses and recriminations ensue solving nothing and simply invoking Filner/Hickey confrontations.  The vBA still hasn’t absorbed that one yet. I suspect they have a whole new panoply of  prestigious programs in the wings waiting to be rolled out when the latest batch fail to bear fruit.

QUESTAR–Questioning Under Extreme Senate Torture And Responses

This is a new program that seeks to provide handy excuses tabulated in an alphabetical context as well as cross-referencing by concept. Fifty new brochures which cover virtually all potential conflicts. Test subjects resembling Senator Sneakers responded well to this pablum-based product.

AVATAR–Advanced Veteran Accounting Targeted to Alleviate Retribution

This was a shareholder contribution from an amalgam of VSOs . A former program, similar in all respects, was entitled CYA but has fallen into disfavor due to overuse and acronym pollution. AVATAR was rolled out just before Undersecretary for vA Excuses Allison Hickey was subjected to Representative Robert Filner’s vitriol. Unfortunately she was too busy in Orlando brushing up on bonus technique and was unable to attend that seminar.

VALUE–Veterans Access to Legal Underutilized Entities

This is simply a reaffirmation of the VSO model of legal help that continues to  promulgate Veterans’ access to meaningless, flawed representation. By characterizing this as a free tool to Veterans in their fight for service connection, shareholder VSOs continue the deception that Veterans are being served ably and that introducing lawyers will cause unfair, massive financial ruin to them (Veterans). Left unsaid is the spectre of  rampant unemployment in their ranks should said lawdogs be allowed an equal footing like SSA claims. Also overlooked is the financial ruin currently being visited on Veterans by the interminable delay in adjudications.

PROMO–Promise Remedial Organizational Make Over

This is slated for introduction as soon as the STAR, OIG and “125 day/98% in 2015” programs do a faceplant. vA believes this will be the winning ticket. They will petition for more funding to send it out to subcontractors for initial preparation. Meanwhile the ROs will continue to sit on claims and bog the process down yielding nothing new under the sun. This plan incorporates new bonus programs and training venues in warm places like Hawaii because workload will be absorbed by lower-paid outsourcing in India. Blame can, and will, finally be affixed to those guilty-the subcontractors. This is a win-win for vA and is recognized as such. Coffee mugs and ballpoint pens have already been ordered and are being stored on the sixth floor of the Winston Salem RO in anticipation of a 2016 rollout. Engineers have already calculated the live load on the floor and found it to be safe. vA employees have been briefed in how to safely navigate around the new boxes.

Humor aside, the system is broken. Were it just a matter of claims adjudication in a timely manner, we’d all be much more understanding. However, we’re talking human lives here. Veterans, in desperation, are taking their own lives because the intransigence and intractability of an agency unable or unwilling to change. Look no further than their insane love affair with paper files years after everyone  else in DC went to E files. That, on its face, is indefensible but no one ever called vA on it. So, in “splendid isolation”, as Senator Alan Cranston phrased it during the VJRA legislative hearings in 1988, vA has continued to drag their feet for another twenty four years and refuse to enter the twenty first century.

The chickens have come home to roost. Vets are taking their own lives at alarming rates. vA continues to prevaricate and insist all is well as the bow of the Titanic slips below the waves. Their proposed repair order? More bilge pumps to stay afloat. At what point will they don their scuba gear, go below and patch the hole permanently and properly? It appears  from the arguments that scuba gear is frightfully expensive, in short supply and a dearth of trained scuba folks are the holdup.

IF IT’S BROKE

 WHY FIX IT?

I find it intriguing that vA hasn’t swept up the PTSD broken glass of America’s prior military endeavors in Vietnam. When will our citizens become enraged and demand an accounting of that and the current idiocy? Who wants to be the last casualty or victim of bent brain syndrome to exit and discover they face a two month delay in mental health care because an agency of our government is selfish and wants to husband its power and assets?

My wife had me install one of these at the side door I use exclusively to remind me how I fit in to the scheme of things. You will also find one of these outside the VSO begging door entrances at all 58 ROs . I include the AMC in that number.