Suicide Among Veterans Is Rising. But Millions for Outreach Went Unspent by V.A.

Suicide prevention efforts by the Department of Veterans Affairs fell off sharply in the last two years, even though reducing the high suicide rate among veterans is the agency’s top clinical priority, according to a new report.

With the department’s top management in turmoil, the suicide prevention effort lacked leadership, planning meetings were repeatedly canceled, millions of dollars budgeted for outreach went unspent, and the television and radio ads that had been broadcast thousands of times across the country in previous years went all but silent.

The striking breakdown in prevention efforts is detailed in a Government Accountability Office report released late Monday. The report says that bureaucratic confusion and vacancies in key posts are largely to blame