Report Slams Doctor at V.A. for Dismissing Suicide Risk of Patient Who Later Killed Himself

WASHINGTON — The internal watchdog for the Department of Veterans Affairs said Tuesday that a veteran who came through the department’s medical center in Washington last year seeking psychiatric treatment died by suicide a few days later, after a doctor there ordered him forcibly removed and was heard saying that she did “not care” if he killed himself.

The report, which details many failings at a center that has been the subject of repeated criticism, comes a few weeks after Robert L. Wilkie, the secretary of veterans affairs, told a conservative news outlet that “President Trump is the first president since the 1890s who recognized the scourge of veteran suicide.”

In 2017, the suicide rate was about 28 per 100,000 for veterans, compared with 18 per 100,000 people in the overall American population, according to a 2019 department report.

But even as the department struggles to lower those numbers, the case at the veterans medical center last year appears egregious. A patient in his 60s, who had a long history of panic attacks, pain killer addiction and various injuries came into the hospital’s emergency room.