Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Associated Press
DAYTON
An investigation concludes that staffers at an Ohio Veterans Affairs medical center made reasonable efforts to treat a veteran who later killed himself, while it also recommends changes.
Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center officials have agreed to improve communications between nurses and other staff and step up suicide-risk training in response to the VA inspector general’s investigation into Jesse Huff’s April 16 death, the Dayton Daily News reported Tuesday. Huff, 27, shot himself in front of the Dayton center hours after leaving it.
The report released Nov. 9 says staff appropriately treated Huff’s pain and mental-health issues in the previous two years and made reasonable efforts to treat him that morning.
The report, however, questions whether Huff’s statement that he felt suicidal when he first arrived was passed along.
Huff told an emergency-room nurse that he felt suicidal when he arrived dressed in full combat attire, shortly after midnight, but the nurse was busy with a critically ill patient and said she instructed a nursing assistant to inform another nurse that Huff was suicidal, the report says.
The first nurse did not enter that information into the medical record, and Huff denied being suicidal when questioned by the second nurse, the report says.
The emergency-room doctor said Huff was suffering from “severe depression and pain issues” and was prepared to admit him voluntarily, but the patient denied he was suicidal, the report says.
Huff left without the doctor’s knowledge after receiving an injection of pain medication for a back injury from a 2005 roadside bomb blast, the report says. He returned three hours later to kill himself.
VA Medical Center Director Guy Richardson said Tuesday that Huff’s suicide was “unfortunate and tragic.”
Richardson also said that required training for both of the recommendations is nearly complete.