Pentagon Suspends delirious Health Counseling Referral Services for DoD Civilians
The Defense Department on Sept. 1 unexpectedly suspended its Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which offers referrals for many thousands in the regular citizen workforce for health care, delirious health advising, legitimate issues and other help services. And keeping in mind that authorities state there’s an agreement set up to resume the service, it’s not clear when it will fire up once more.
The suspension of the program went for the most part under the radar, with no public declaration from the DoD, in spite of the fact that at any rate one DoD agency exhorted its staff that they should call 911 out of a crisis while the suspension is as a result.
In a posted explanation on its site, the Defense Logistics Agency said EAP given by Federal Occupational Health (FOH), an agency inside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “were unexpectedly suspended as of 9/1/2019 while DoD is implementing new contracting mechanisms.”
“DoD is working to rectify the situation and allow EAP services to resume as soon as possible. If this is a medical emergency, please call 911 or our health care service provider,” the DLA explanation said.
DLA officials said the alarm was intended for inner staff, and inquiries on the suspension, the agreements and Federal Occupational Health ought to be coordinated to the DoD.
There was no prompt reaction from the DoD, yet Pentagon representative Heather Babb affirmed late Friday in a emailed statement that the EAP had been suspended, and the suspension affects DoD regular folks at the Pentagon, the military branches, defense agencies and DoD field activities.
The Defense Department is the government’s biggest employer, with in excess of 700,000 regular people in the workforce around the world.
Babb’s announcement said EAP referral services, gave through a game plan the Department of Health and Human Services and Federal Occupational Health, would be continued in a matter of seconds, yet couldn’t state when.
The announcement additionally proposes that a restoration of services under the present arrangement of action would be temporary while the DoD searches for a “long-term solution” to giving representative help.
“DoD’s Employee Assistance Program was previously administered through interagency agreements [with HHS],” Babb said. “Those services were incidentally suspended September 1.
“The health, safety and welfare of our civilian employees is a priority, and DoD is committed to continuing the services previously provided by the Employee Assistance Program,” she included. “To minimize the disruption in service, HHS has agreed to temporarily resume Employee Assistance Program services to DoD. DoD is developing long-term solutions to provide this important support to DoD civilian employees.”
A representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, which speaks to 250,000 regular civilians at the DoD, said Thursday the union had gotten word from the Defense Department that the Employee Assistance Program would be continued, however “it may take a couple of days for the services to get turned back on.”
Federal Occupational Health includes an extraordinary status inside the government bureaucracy and bills itself as the biggest supplier of word related health services in the federal government, serving in excess of 360 federal agencies and arriving at 1.8 million administrative employees.
FOH is a “non-appropriated agency” inside the Program Support Center of HHS, and all things considered it “operates like a business within the government and charges government agencies for the services it provides them,” as indicated by the FOH website.
FOH, through the Employee Assistance Program, offers beginning evaluations, short-term guiding, referrals and follow-up help services for health care, family and relationship issues, work environment issues,alcohol and drug dependence, depression and different issues that can influence job performance, as indicated by the site.