Gregg Zoroya

USA TODAY

A suicide hotline struggling to assist increasing numbers of former servicemembers in crisis is being hampered by four veterans who call thousands of times per month, tying up phone lines with abusive and even vulgar comments, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The four called 5,619 times in May, more than 4% of all 128,346 calls that came into what's known as the Veterans Crisis Line. One caller alone was responsible for 2,158 calls in May, according to VA press secretary Victoria Dillon.

"Most of the calls are often abusive, vulgar and profane," said Sloan Gibson, VA deputy secretary.

The hotline was established in 2007 to provide counseling and assistance to veterans struggling emotionally. Since then, the volume has increased dramatically and last year the hotline received more than 500,000 calls. The counselors who answer perform an average of about 30 "rescues" — preventing suicides — each day, the VA says.

The service has come under fire in recent months amid reports that some in-coming calls last year were transferred to backup centers, where they were fed into a voicemail answering system. The VA said that problem has been corrected, but it still struggles to answer all the calls coming in and at times 35% to 50% go to backup centers outside the VA where people answering the phone lack the training and resources that the VA call center has.

The VA's goal is to handle all calls without any going to a backup center by Sept. 30.

The agency is expanding hotline staff. But Gibson said efforts can be frustrated by the repetitive, abusive phone calls from the four veterans who are not in crisis.

"It's unacceptable that they would block that kind of access for other veterans and other active-duty service members that really need crisis help and so we're working through this clinically now to address that, cause it's just wrong," Gibson said. "My bottom line was deal with it and deal with it quickly because we're not going to continue to have that happen."

Dillon said the VA will be "restricting their calls only after a consultation with clinicians at their local VA Medical Centers to ensure that these four veterans can be cared for appropriately, while at the same time freeing up staff at the Veterans Crisis Line for those veterans, servicemembers and family members who need to speak with crisis line counselors timely and thoroughly."