Long Island, NY — On Sunday, Aug. 21, Peter A. Kaisen, 76, of Islip, went to the Emergency Room of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he’d been a patient, and asked for help.

“He went to the ER and was denied service,” a hospital worker said. “And then he went to his car and shot himself.”

The worker, who asked not to be identified, added this: “Someone dropped the ball. They should not have turned him away.”

The stats are staggering: “In 2013, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs released a study that covered suicides from 1999 to 2010, which showed that roughly 22 veterans were committing suicide per day, or one every 65 minutes.” (WIKI)

A more recent VA survey, dubbed “the most comprehensive suicide study ever conducted by the department,” essentially confirms those numbers.

According to the New York Times, the Veterans Administration has been under scrutiny since 2014, when the department confirmed that numerous patients had died awaiting treatment at a VA hospital in Phoenix.

“Officials there had tried to cover up long waiting times for 1,700 veterans seeking medical care,” the Times said. “A study released by the Government Accountability Office in April indicated that the system had yet to fix its scheduling problems.”

Kaisen’s obituary is listed on the Moloney Family Funeral Homes, Inc., website: “Devoted husband, beloved father, grandfather, cherished friend and brother.”

That’s it.

Chances are Kaisen’s suicide will soon be forgotten: One more stat, one more veteran let down by an inefficient, bloated, corrupt system that asked him to serve his country — then ignored him when he asked for help.

He deserved better — j.s.l.

Jim Lamb is a U.S. Navy Veteran. He served in Da Nang as an Aviation Electronics Technician (E-5) during the Vietnam Conflict. His job was to work on radio components.