Blake Hall
As inconceivable as it may be, a manager at the Roudebush Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Indianapolis mocked the mental health struggles of returning combat veterans in an email addressed to her employees.
According to the Indianapolis Star, attached to the email are photographs of a toy Christmas elf posing as a patient in the hospital’s transitional clinic for returning veterans. In one photo, the elf asks for the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. In another photo (pictured above), the elf hangs himself with an electrical cord.
Robin Paul, a licensed social worker, is the manager who sent the email in question. She runs the hospital’s Seamless Transition Integrated Care Clinic — a facility that is supposed to provide returning veterans with “transition assistance”, which may or may not entail psychological assessment and treatment and/or readjustment services.
The correspondence was sent on December 18 to the “IND STICC Team” with the subject head “Naughty Elf in the STICC clinic”.
When initially contacted for comment by the Indianapolis Star, Paul replied with a cryptic “Oh my goodness” but then proceeded to direct the reporter to the organization’s public affairs which swiftly issued a statement condemning the highly-offensive message.
According to the VA, an estimated 22 veterans commit suicide in the United States every day.