Lawmakers push mental health care for IRR - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Lawmakers push mental health care for IRR

A group of House lawmakers is renewing an effort to give inactive reservists who have had at least one deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan special access to mental health services.

About 11,000 Individual Ready Reserve members and Individual Mobilization Augmentees would be affected. Because they are not members of active or reserve units, they do not have the same access to mental health and suicide prevention programs as other combat veterans, which is why the lawmakers, led by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., is pushing to expand the reach of military help.

Specifically, the bill would require the Defense Department to arrange a telephone call from a mental health professional to every member of the IRR within 90 days of the end of a deployment and every 90 days after for as long as they remain in the IRR.

The call is intended to check on their emotional, medical, psychological and financial status, and to get them help for any problems. The mental health professional would be required to refer anyone considered a suicide risk to the nearest military treatment facility or Tricare provider for evaluation and possible treatment.

Holt and the five cosponsors expect their proposal to easily pass the House of Representatives as part of the 2011 defense authorization bill.

But they have not yet figured out a way to overcome the objections that killed similar legislation last year during negotiations with the Senate over questions about how much it would cost to make checkup phone calls to so many people.

“How anyone could believe that our government can’t afford to make suicide prevention phone calls to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is as baffling as it is callous,” Holt said.

Holt’s push for the legislation results from the 2008 suicide of Army Sgt. Coleman S. Bean, who served two tours in Iraq. Holt said that Bean tried but failed to get help for post-traumatic stress from the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments but his status prevented him from qualifying.

“Two federal agencies charged with helping prevent suicides among our returning troops utterly failed Sgt. Bean and his family,” Holt said in a statement. “We cannot allow another family to lose a son or daughter, a father or mother, a husband or a wife because of bureaucratic buck-passing.”

The bill, HR 5170, is named the Sergeant Coleman S. Bean Individual Ready Reserve Suicide Prevention Act of 2010.

Bean’s mother supports the legislation. “Since Coleman’s death, we have come to know that one phone call — just one honest expression of compassion — can help catch and hold someone who is at the edge of despair,” Linda Bean said in a statement issued by Holt’s office. “For us, if the phone calls mandated by this legislation help save one life — then that is blessing enough.”