Pentagon needs special office for suicide prevention, says report

A new report has said that suicide prevention programs currently being used by the military are not working, and that an office for strategy and planning is not being used most efficiently.

To fight the all-time high suicide rates, the Pentagon is being asked to create a new high-level office to manage a centralized system that would provide care and benefits to member of all four branches.

Over 1100 soldiers killed themselves from 2005 to 2009, and numbers are already rising this year. The biggest increases have been in the Army and Marine Corps, whose members are the most widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The task force commends the armed forces for the suicide prevention initiatives it has undertaken and knows of no other employer that has focused as much attention and resources on suicide prevention," said the report by a 14-member panel comprised of military and civilian doctors, social planners and suicide experts.

"However, the task force found that the current vast expansion of suicide prevention initiatives across the services was developed rapidly and separately by each service for immediate execution."

It said that programs "could benefit from re-engineering," as, among other issues, cases overlap or are not treated evenly.

Source: Huffington Post

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