Tester Presses VA to Improve Emergency Service for Veterans in Crisis

Monday, September 23, 2024

(U.S. Senate) - Continuing his push to ensure veterans have reliable access to critical emergency mental health services, Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester is calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to immediately resolve issues with the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL)-a life-saving tool for veterans experiencing mental health crises. Tester's push follows reports of several VCL disruptions over a multi-week period.

The VCL provides a critical service for responding to veterans in crisis and is an important tool for preventing veteran suicide. The VCL offers 24/7 confidential assistance through call, text, and chat support.

"I write today to express my concern over several recent Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) service disruptions and intermittent access issues, which resulted in disconnected or dropped calls and chats and related challenges," wrote Tester in a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough. "…I believe these incidents point to the need for a more comprehensive review of the system's reliability and resilience, backup and redundancy procedures, and related areas to ensure VCL is available every second of every day."

The Senator called on VA to "take all measures possible" to make sure veterans are able to continuously access the VCL without obstacles, and to ensure they are not impacted by preventable or unexpected technology issues.

Tester underscored the importance of the VCL in assisting veterans in crisis, and the need for improvements to ensure this critical service is working for veterans: "…[W]hen this service is not functioning properly, veterans experiencing a mental health crisis are at an increased risk for harm that could be mitigated by a VCL crisis responder, who is trained to identify a caller's level of risk for harm and, when appropriate, initiate dispatch of emergency services for those at risk of imminent harm. With the stakes this high, one disconnected or dropped VCL call or chat is too many."

While the Senator acknowledged VA acted quickly during these VCL disruptions to resolve technology issues, rerouted calls, and attempted to re-engage all dropped calls and chats, he stressed the number of disruption events was still concerning and indicated the need to make more improvements to the VCL "… to ensure underlying problems are resolved and further resilience measures enhanced."

In addition, he emphasized the importance of having a well-trained and fully-staffed workforce in place in order to continue to allow VCL to deliver these vital services. Tester concluded: "While the technology and systems that drive VCL are critical, so are appropriate staffing levels, training, and support for the personnel that manage and answer the calls and texts every day. Without this critically important workforce, VCL could not function."

A staunch advocate of improving the VCL, Tester led an oversight hearing in September 2023 to examine strengthening VA's mental health care and suicide prevention resources, including the VCL.

In 2023, he also championed the Support the Resilience of Our Nation's Great (STRONG) Veterans Act, which included key oversight provisions to improve the VCL and ensure veterans' access to the life-saving mental health resource. This built on the Senator's other mental health initiatives such as the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act, a law which bolsters VA's mental health workforce and increases rural veterans' access to care, while expanding veterans' access to alternative and local treatment options.

Read the Senator's full letter HERE.

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, contact the Veterans Crisis Line to receive free, confidential support and crisis intervention available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Dial 988, then press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text 838255.

https://www.veterans.senate.gov/2024/9/tester-presses-va-to-improve-emergency-service-for-veterans-in-crisis