\u201cThey told him there was nobody available, and people were busy,\u201d Gerald Austin, Amy Voight\u2019s father, told the Union-Tribune after police discovered the couple\u2019s bodies and that of his granddaughter, 13-year-old Mya, inside the home Sept. 16.<\/p>\n
While the tragedy sparked grief and second-guessing across the San Carlos community, it also revived questions about how military veterans access mental health care \u2014 and how recent reductions in staffing to the VA\u00a0have affected those services.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear where the Voights went, with whom they spoke or specifically what they were told when they apparently tried to seek help before their deaths. The VA declined to discuss the Voight case in any detail, citing confidentiality rules, but a VA spokesperson disputed the family\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
![\"From](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sut-l-voight-family-02.jpg\")
From left, Amy Voight, with husband, David Voight, and daughter, Mya. (Family photo)<\/p>\n
\u201cV.A. can\u2019t comment on this particular case due to privacy concerns,\u201d spokesperson Quinn Slaven said by email. \u201cWhat\u2019s being alleged regarding V.A. services is not accurate. All V.A. healthcare facilities offer same-day emergency mental healthcare to all veterans who need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veterans groups and other advocates credit the VA with delivering terrific healthcare \u2014 once former service members are enrolled.<\/p>\n
But the wait for specialty services, including mental health treatment<\/a>, can stretch for months or longer, leaving many veterans on their own, VA data show.\u00a0The lucky ones find help from within or through the kindness of family and friends before the federal government is able to help, veterans and advocates say.<\/p>\n \u201cTransitioning back to the civilian community after the military is very much like migrating from one social order to another,\u201d said Ron Stark, who spent 20 years as a submarine technician for the U.S. Navy before retiring in the 1990s.<\/p>\n Much of the acclimation after leaving the service, he said, \u201cfalls on the veteran himself to find their own way \u2014 and that\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n Stark said he still has to work at reintegrating himself into civilian society \u2014 and he has been out of the military for more years than he served.<\/p>\n He copes in part by volunteering with the San Diego Veterans Coalition, a group of nonprofits that helps veterans navigate the non-military world. Stark is particularly proud of Onward Up, a program that finds and sponsors veterans at risk of falling through the social safety net.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are much more services available than are being used,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think we can go it on our own, and then we can\u2019t \u2014 and then we really can\u2019t. But there\u2019s hardly anything out there that will do it all for you. You have to be engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department of Veterans Affairs\u00a0operates the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, treating more than 9 million enrolled veterans for everything from basic medical services to specialized cancer and other treatments.<\/p>\n But while patients and their advocates generally give high marks to the quality of services provided by the VA, there are persistent criticisms that the bureaucracy is too slow to enroll patients and that there are unacceptable delays in delivering specialized treatment.<\/p>\n According to VA data<\/a>, established patients seeking individual mental health care around San Diego County generally must wait between nine and 18 days to be seen by a therapist. For new patients, the wait stretches from 25 to 76 days.<\/p>\n Clinics in Kearny Mesa and Oceanside are able to schedule sessions with troubled veterans who are established patients in nine days, but the wait is 10 days at the Rio center in Mission Valley and at the Escondido clinic, federal records show.<\/p>\n The same database says wait times for individual counseling at the Jennifer Moreno Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in La Jolla are 12 days, and 18 days at the Chula Vista clinic.<\/p>\n Independent researchers say delays have grown worse over the past two years, as the Trump administration used attrition, early retirements and a hiring freeze in a move to reduce as many as 30,000 jobs<\/a> from the VA under the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, overseen by Elon Musk.<\/p>\n Frontline healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses, were exempt, the VA spokesperson said, and the positions that were eliminated have not affected patient services.<\/p>\n \u201cAverage wait times for V.A. mental health care are lower under the second Trump administration than they were under Joe Biden,\u201d Slaven said.<\/p>\n He pointed to national VA data that show new patients wait an average of nearly 16 days compared to 20 days in fiscal 2023 and 19 in fiscal 2024. The VA completed a record high of 15.5 million mental health care appointments last fiscal year, as well as set new records for veteran suicide screenings, he added.<\/p>\n