11:59 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The voices in Jack Edenburn's head began soon after he returned from Vietnam. They told him to end it all.
He ignored them for almost 40 years, until the day he stood at the railroad tracks near his Lancaster home, fantasizing about stepping in front of a train. That's the day he went to Dallas VA Medical Center. And some days, he says, he regrets that decision.
"Imagine hell," he said of his five days in the psychiatric unit, "then think worse."
Patients soiled with feces and soaked in urine wandered aimlessly, screaming, rolling delirious on the floor. One woman, he said, removed ceiling tiles and crawled into the space above the day room.
"I was more traumatized after five days in the VA than I was when I was admitted," said Mr. Edenburn, who works in the mail room of an insurance office. "And remember, I was suicidal when I went there."
Officials for the VA North Texas Health Care System say more than $250,000 has been spent in the last six months to improve safety on the ward, part of the VA hospital on South Lancaster Road.
But after four patient suicides in four months – including those of two men who hanged themselves during treatment in the 51-bed psychiatric unit – hospital officials effectively closed the ward two weekends ago.
Investigators from the Department of Veterans Affairs ordered patient records and other material after the latest suicide on April 4. They are expected to tour the hospital and begin assessing its safety next week.
VA officials in Washington declined to comment Tuesday.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/041608dnmetva.3cf3820.html
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