Suicide Prevention Month

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL. I thank the Congresswoman from Arizona, my distinguished colleague on the House Financial Services Committee. I thank the gentlewoman for calling attention to all the Members in the House in this hallowed Chamber on this very, very important topic. So I thank the gentlewoman for inviting us to share.

Mr. Speaker, in 2013, a documentary about the Veterans Crisis Line aired on HBO. Winning an Academy Award for Best Short Subject Documentary in 2015, ``Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1'' highlighted the suicide crisis that we are talking about here tonight. It talked about the crisis that is facing our Nation's veterans and the men and women who are employed by the hotline that have devoted their time and their expertise in listening to our veterans and trying to aid them in their moment of crisis. Too many times, these calls are ones of last resort, with our veterans having nowhere else to turn and no one else to help them.

Over the years, we have continued to hear of the tragic crisis facing our veterans who continue to suffer from the invisible wounds of war that wreak havoc on their minds, destroy families, and, sadly, claim the lives of an average of some 20 veterans every day.

Arkansas' Second Congressional District is home to many of our brave veterans from the conflicts of our country. Many servicemembers currently who serve at Little Rock Air Force Base and at Camp Robinson and our veterans in central Arkansas are fortunate to have one of the top facilities in the entire country when it comes to treating mental health issues.

The Towbin Healthcare Center, more commonly known as Fort Roots, located in north Little Rock, Arkansas, provides our local veterans with mental health care facilities and services that have received national attention on ``60 Minutes.'' The doctors at Fort Roots, their innovation, their success with post-traumatic stress disorder, and their treatments have gotten that kind of national recognition. The management, the doctors, and the rank-and-file employees work tirelessly to give our veterans suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injury a chance for rehabilitation and for getting back and getting on with their lives and their families.

The Central Arkansas Veterans Mental Health Council has also partnered with veterans, their families, and the central Arkansas community to help address this ongoing crisis and better help serve the mental health needs of our Arkansas veterans.

In Congress, we are working together on a bipartisan basis to enact policies that help our veterans and reform our mental health care system. Last year, the House passed with bipartisan support and the President signed into law the Clay Hunt SAV Act to increase access to mental health care for veterans and ensure the accountability of our Federal agencies in providing essential suicide prevention services.

The bill's namesake, a marine veteran from Houston, Texas, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Clay Hunt took his own life at the age of 28 in 2011, after a years-long struggle with PTSD that he had suffered as a result of his brave service to our country.

We are also working to better address the mental health needs of our entire country through the passage of the Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act, which was on the House floor earlier this summer. This landmark bill, introduced by our colleague, Representative Murphy from Pennsylvania, was cosponsored by over 200 bipartisan Members of the House and addresses our seriously outdated mental health care system by refocusing and retooling our mental health programs, clarifying our privacy laws to ensure healthcare professionals can communicate with caregivers, and addressing the shortages in our mental health workforce and treatment facilities.

In the debate on that bill, it was stunning to learn that in the mid- 1970s we had some half a million mental healthcare beds in this country, and now we have some 50,000. It is sad to hear the stories of parents of adult children who have lost them because of the lack of communication and the lack of service in some of our States in mental health. I commend Congressman Murphy for helping lead and build a major bipartisan coalition on this important topic.

But all of us together--and I again thank the Congresswoman from Arizona--we all must work together and continue to move forward with thoughtful and effective legislation on the issue of mental health and mental health access and do what we can to save the lives of our veterans and reverse this deadly trend of suicides.

I am proud to join my colleagues this evening to discuss this important matter, and I am committed to ensuring that all of our veterans, our servicemembers, and their families receive the care and information they need to prevent suicide and help them heal and recover from these invisible wounds of war.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairwoman Sinema for this time. I thank the gentlewoman for the opportunity to share this part of the evening with her, and I commend the gentlewoman for her leadership.

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