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Emotional Army Veteran Expresses Frustrations with VA in Viral TikTok Video

An emotional Army veteran expressed his deep-rooted frustrations with attempting to get consistent mental health from the Department of Veterans Affairs in a TikTok video that went viral.

Retired Army Sgt. Joe Cantasano shared a video on May 17 detailing how the VA failed to provide him with consistent mental health care. Cantasano has had to endure a constant change of mental health providers – which has left him exasperated.

“Seven times over the course of the last f***ing six years dude, the VA has continued to let me down,” a tearful Cantasano said on video. “I just want some f***ing continuity of care with mental health providers. What the f***?”

Cantasano said that his doctors “kept quitting” or the health network switched which health care professionals were available.

“And then the one doctor that I really liked, who talked me off of f***ing ledge the last time was refused,” he said, noting that the doctor went out of his network.

The Army veteran said he spent the last two years “dealing with my own demons myself and trying to hold it f***ing together.” Cantasano said he’s been off “all my medications for f***ing two years.”

“I’ve been doing it all on my own, just white-knuckling it,” he said.

Cantasano lamented about seeing a new doctor, “Then I gotta open f***ing Pandora’s box again because they’re gonna want to know everything, and I’m gonna have to live through that for a month.”

Cantasano added, “It’s not a lot to ask, I just want to be able to talk to the same person, and not have to retell these f***ing stories that torment me.”

“I just want some continuity of f***ing care,” he said at the end of the video that quickly went viral online.

@averagefloridaman Reposting the original video.. i have posted and update, please be sure to watch that, i knew that by sharing my all to common story and allowing myself to be vulnerable in front of the world that i might light a fire of change. Now we have national attention on this epidemic. 🙌🏼 #Vet #veteran #mentalhealth #veteransoftiktok #veteransaffairs #vets ♬ original sound – AverageFloridaMan

Fox News host Lawrence Jones saw the viral video, and invited Cantasano to talk about how the VA failed him.

Cantasano said he was forced to go through “five or six providers over the course of 15 months for a multitude of different reasons.”

The Army veteran said it can take up to a month to find a local health care provider in his community.

Cantasano noted that there was “a lot of red tape at the VA” as well as in Congress that impedes providing veterans with quality care.

He hopes that his viral video will “get the ball rolling in the right direction.”

He continued, “I just feel like, I know that my instance and my experience is not special, it’s it happens hundreds of times a day that that, you know, veterans are told that they can’t see their primary mental health care provider any longer or are no longer authorized to go back to that individual.”

Lawrence said Cantasano’s emotional video “got his attention.”

READ 11 COMMENTS
  • Meee says:

    Hey, that is the reality of the VA. You think you are the first? The VA has been letting vets down since day one. I have not heard one thing good about the VA. My father would never go there for anything. Thank goodness, he could go elsewhere for medical care. VA would have just let him die while waiting. Hate to slap you with the truth but the VA is not good for anything. Stay away if you want better health care.

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