Congress has the power to save the lives of women veterans – Hometown Focus

Kim Hubers

When I dreamed of joining the military, I knew it wouldn’t be an easy dream to achieve. I knew that I would have to push myself beyond my limits and that I could be required to risk my life. During my fourteen years in the South Dakota Army National Guard, including my service in Iraq, all of this and more came to fruition.

But I couldn’t predict what the most difficult parts of the service would be. They came after I took off the uniform, after the war had wreaked havoc on my body. It was the experience of being fired and feeling misunderstood by the system that promised to take care of me, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

While every veteran inevitably faces challenges navigating an imperfect system, women veterans have historically been overlooked and underserved by the VA. Much progress has been made in recent decades, but with lives at stake, it is not enough.

According to the VA, the suicide rate among female veterans increased 24.1 percent from 2020 to 2021 — nearly four times as high as the 6.3 percent increase among male veterans.

The reasons for the staggering suicide rate among female veterans are revealed by Disabled American Veterans (DAV) in their new report, “Women Veterans: The Journey to Mental Wellness.” DAV takes a deep dive into the unique factors that put female veterans at risk for suicide and the VA’s failure to appropriately address these factors.

Armed with this information, DAV makes an urgent call for action; Congress and the VA must address glaring gaps in mental health care and dramatically improve suicide prevention efforts among female veterans.

For example, a common factor contributing to suicide risk among female veterans is military sexual trauma (MST), including assault and harassment. Among veterans enrolled in VA care, an astonishing one in three women report experiencing MST.

The VA recognizes that MST is an independent risk factor for suicide and is associated with other mental health diagnoses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which are associated with additional increased risks for suicidal thoughts and behavior.

Yet the VA model for predicting suicidality and intervening in high-risk veterans does not even consider MST. How can this model effectively serve a population where an estimated one-third have experienced sexual trauma? Simply put: that’s not possible. Such mistakes will inevitably fail to prevent suicide among female veterans.

Additional factors that put female veterans at risk include high rates of intimate partner violence; substance use disorder; pregnancy where the mother has pre-existing mental health issues, as many female veterans do; and menopause.

The VA must fully integrate the experiences of women veterans into its suicide prevention efforts and the mental health care it provides, as well as remove barriers to accessing gender-specific care.

The DAV report makes more than fifty potentially life-saving recommendations that provide a roadmap to this end. These include: • Make MST a central pillar of suicide prevention efforts within the VA.
• Require VA-contracted health care providers – including maternity care providers – to be trained in suicide prevention and issues affecting women veterans.
• Create a three-digit number, with a veteran option, for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
• Assess the need for more female veteran-specific residential substance abuse rehabilitation programs. We all sign to serve, knowing that sacrifices will be required. We understand that we may have to risk our bodies and our lives. And we trust that we will receive the care we deserve and deserve when we return.

I implore Congress and the VA to consider DAV’s recommendations and act quickly.

Kim Hubers is a disabled South Dakota Army National Guard veteran of the Iraq War. She is a lifelong member of DAV; commander of DAV Chapter 1 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and member of the DAV Interim Women Veterans Advisory Committee. In 2023, she was named DAV’s Disabled American Veteran of the Year for her dedicated service to veterans.