Afghan Vet Dies of Overdose in VA SubstanceAbuse Center
The United States has gone out of its way to support the 1 of Americans who have gone to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 9/11 attacks. But, frankly, a lot of the cheers are simply rhetoric making cracks through which returning troops fall all too often. Sure, the Department of Veterans Affairs budget has more than doubled, rising from 73 billion in 2006 to a proposed 164 billion next year. But all that spending hasn't done enough to salve the wars' unseen wounds, as a nationwide survey of post-9/11 U.S. veterans detailed in Sunday's Washington Post makes clear. That becomes even more apparent when you stumble across a report like Unexpected Patient Death in a Substance Abuse Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program, issued Friday by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general. An Afghanistan war veteran went to the VA to get help fighting his struggles with drugs and alcohol. That's why he was in a 24-bed section of Miami, Florida's VA hospital dedicated to treating addicts. The Substance Abuse Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program SARRTP facility has a single entrance. It has a camera there to monitor everyone's coming and going. And while patients can leave the center, they're searched when they get back to ensure they're not bringing in any contraband. The details in the report are too blurry to identify the vet involved. But the few specifics are clear enough He spent several months in early 2013 in the SARRTP unit, after he had bounced from the VA's Psychosocial Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program to the VA's PTSD Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program then to the VA's acute inpatient mental health unit. The VA's goal get him "into PTSD residential treatment once he improves coping skills, mood stability, and functioning." He never made it. Perhaps his craving to get high would have doomed him in any event. But the VA's inaction, as detailed in the following excerpts from the IG's report, guaranteed his failure, The patient was an Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan combat veteran in his twenties, who was diagnosed with polysubstance dependence, PTSD, sleep apnea, mood disorder and traumatic brain injury. Upon admission to the SARRTP, UDS urine drug screen results were negative for illicit substances. Two days later, UDS results were positive for cocaine. The SARRTP psychiatrist addressed the results with the patient. The patient admitted that he used cocaine after admission to the SARRTP. He had left the unit to pick up money that had been wired to him and used the funds to purchase cocaine. He was placed on pass restriction no overnight or weekend passes for 3 weeks. However, the veteran was permitted to leave the unit for up to 2 hours without a pass. UDS results from the next month were again positive for cocaine. The SARRTP psychologist addressed this with the patient and he was placed back on pass restriction for another three weeks. The day before his death, the patient left the SARRTP on a pass in the early afternoon. Upon his return that evening, a breathalyzer test was completed with negative results no alcohol detected. A staff nurse documented at that time, "bags checked no.", SARRTP patients who were interviewed by CID Criminal Investigations Division agents reported that while on the SARRTP that evening, the patient was intoxicated from illicit drugs and required assistance to get into bed. The patient was found dead in his room on the SARRTP unit the next morning. The medical examiner determined that the official cause of death was acute cocaine and heroin toxicity. It's unnerving that heroin helped kill this Afghan vet. Afghanistan is the source of about 80 of the world's heroin. Poor Afghan farmers dedicated more than 500,000 acres to the opium poppy's cultivation in 2013. That's up 36 from 2012.