VA actions in Marine's case to be investigated

A team of federal investigators will arrive today at VA medical centers in Minneapolis and St. Cloud to look into family claims that Marine veteran Jonathan J. Schulze was denied a bed for psychiatric care days before he committed suicide last month.

The Office of the Medical Inspector at the Veterans Affairs central office in Washington will conduct the investigation, said Joan Vincent, public affairs officer at the VA Medical Center in St. Cloud.

Schulze hanged himself in New Prague, Minn., on Jan. 16. His father and stepmother, Jim and Marianne Schulze, said that days earlier, the veteran twice told VA staff workers -- at the St. Cloud VA hospital on Jan. 11, and over the phone on Jan. 12 -- that he felt like killing himself. VA officials, citing privacy laws, have neither confirmed nor denied that account.

"We'd be breaking the law if we released any information about that," Vincent said Wednesday.

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., said Wednesday that VA officials in Minneapolis, St. Cloud and Washington, D.C., told him they dispute that Schulze presented himself to hospital staff as suicidal. Just what happened in the exchange between Schulze and VA staff should be clearer next week when the investigation ends, Kline said.

"It's just unconscionable that you have a man that's identified by the system, yet he gets to the point where he commits suicide," said Kline, a Marine veteran who represents the district where Schulze lived.

Kline said that he talked with the family this week to express "my great disappointment and concern about what happened."

Schulze had been seeing a psychiatrist at the Minneapolis VA hospital, but his father took him to St. Cloud in hopes of getting him admitted more quickly for psychiatric care. Jim Schulze said his son had been told that he couldn't be admitted to the Minneapolis VA hospital until March.

Empty beds

Ten of 25 beds in the Minneapolis VA's locked psychiatric unit are occupied this week, spokesman Steve Moynihan said Wednesday. He said that unit doesn't have a waiting list.

Schulze, a machine gunner and a corporal, had fought in Iraq in battles where Marine casualties were high. He had told his family that he felt guilty that he had lived and close friends had died. He left the Marines in late 2005 after four years of service.

Schulze's stepmother said that she witnessed Jonathan telling VA staff workers in St. Cloud that he felt like killing himself. She said she also heard him tell a VA counselor over the phone the next day that he was suicidal. After that conversation he told his stepmother that he learned that he was No. 26 on a waiting list for admittance to the St. Cloud psychiatric unit.

The St. Cloud VA has no waiting list for its locked, acute psychiatric unit -- where suicidal or homicidal veterans would be taken -- and never has, Vincent said this week. "We've never had a wait list for our beds in the acute psychiatric unit, where we would likely take people if we thought they were suicidal," she said.

A separate mental-health unit with beds had a waiting list of 21 veterans on Monday, Vincent said. That unit, known as residential treatment, is more for ongoing cases involving mental health and substance abuse, she said. Although the residential treatment unit also handles post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, she said that any veteran who talked about suicide would go to the acute psychiatric unit right away.

Vincent said it's VA policy to even call local police to check on a veteran who, over the telephone, says that he's suicidal. The veteran first might be encouraged to visit the nearest emergency room at any hospital, she said. She said she didn't know if Minnesota's two VA hospitals had sent suicidal patients to community hospitals in the past because of a shortage of beds in locked units.

Two other members of Minnesota's congressional delegation expressed concern about the VA's ability to cope with a growing wave of troops returning from Iraq. Many of those veterans are expected to need counseling because of combat stress, lengthy separation from families, financial problems and other worries.

"The hidden costs of this war are not being addressed," said Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a member of the U.S. House Veterans' Affairs Committee and a veteran. "I've been deeply concerned. I think there's been almost nothing done to prepare for this."

VA unprepared?

Schulze's death, Walz said, points to a looming problem as more veterans return to Minnesota from Iraq. "I'm anguished over this," he said of Schulze's death. "What's heartbreaking is that Jonathan had the foresight to reach out."

Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., said he's written a letter to R. James Nicholson, who heads the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, asking what it would take financially to meet the needs of returning Iraq veterans.

"None of our brave troops who are suffering from mental illness should be placed on a waiting list for treatment," Ramstad said. "It's unfortunate that it takes a tragedy like this to focus congressional attention."

Walz said that VA hospitals in Minnesota are "taxed to their limit" and that families of Iraq veterans are "totally lost" in the struggle to provide care to mounting numbers of men and women who have served overseas.

"I don't think we've seen anything like it," he said.

Vincent said that the St. Cloud VA began an internal review as a result of the Schulze case, and that such reviews are standard "whenever there is an adverse event." Results will remain private, she said.

The investigation by federal officials might be the first of its kind at the VA's hospitals in Minnesota, and it is separate from the internal review, Vincent said.

Kevin Giles • 612-673-7707 • kgiles@startribune.com