Female Veteran Suicide Prevention Act
Floor Speech
I rise today in support of H.R. 2915, a bill to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to identify mental health care and suicide prevention programs that are effective in treating women veterans as a part of the evaluation of such programs by the Secretary.
My friend, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, Ms. Julia Brownley, was integral to identifying the issues affecting women suicides. I commend her leadership in bringing this issue to our attention.
Congress has long recognized the unacceptable rates of suicide among our Nation's veterans. Most recently, Congress passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, Public Law 114-2, which requires an independent third party to evaluate VA mental health care and suicide prevention programs.
VA's most recent suicide data report was released in February of 2013. That report found that 18 to 22 veterans per day commit suicide. In a follow-up report, the VA found an increase in the suicide rate among female veterans who use the VA healthcare system.
This finding echoes recent research that found that female veterans commit suicide nearly six times the rate of other women and that women veterans are five times more likely to be successful in committing suicide than male veterans.
This bill would amend the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act to include within the independent third-party evaluation specific metrics applicable to women and to identify the VA mental health care and suicide prevention programs that are most effective and have the highest satisfaction rates among with women veterans.
Additionally, this legislation includes a provision that my friend, Representative Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has been working on for years.
This section requires the VA to establish and publish standards and procedures to ensure that a woman who participated in a classified mission or served in a sensitive unit while in the Armed Forces may access VA mental health care without improperly disclosing classified information.
This provision would also require the VA to find alternative methods of mental health treatment for veterans who need to access care without being put in a position where they may reveal information that should not be disclosed.
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Mr. TAKANO. Brownley).
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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, again, I wish to thank my colleagues, Ms. Brownley and Ms. Sinema, for bringing the issues surrounding the prevention of female suicides in the military to our attention.
I urge passage of this very important bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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