By: Lt. Gen (Ret.) Romeo Dallair, Special Contributor to the Globe and Mail
When I learned the news last week about the Canadian veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who unsuccessfully sought help and then, overcome by his operational injury, apparently killed his family and himself – I was beyond distraught. The catastrophic case of Lionel Desmond could not serve as a more powerful warning to the senior policy-makers in our country. But will it be enough?
I have spent decades fighting for injured veterans, including myself, as we continue to destroy ourselves and too many others in our wake. The wars that soldiers fight do not end when we return home; they stay alive within us, and without urgent treatment our injury – PTSD – will destroy us. Just like an injury to the body will become gangrenous, fester, and infect, so too does this injury to our brains and moral centre. But unlike most other injuries, PTSD deeply affects the entire family as well; in this case, fatally.
The scale of the damage and the depth of the destruction that deployment in today’s complex conflicts can wreak is almost incomprehensible. Lionel Desmond’s actions were reprehensible; but, so too was the lack of care he and his family received when he returned from his mission. This was a soldier lost in a system that is grievously inadequate to handle the load and complexity of these injuries or to provide the urgent support required for vets and their families. With a chain of command out of the picture, and an underfunded veterans department strangled by regulations, our system is wholly unprepared for this postwar demand. As a result, injured vets, both in and out of service, continue to be shunted aside, falling into the support cracks, flailing for help.
This is an urgent message that must be heeded: The casualties of past wars continue to mount even as we are preparing for the next conflict. Military-weapons upgrades, the introduction of new tactics, and preparations of troops to face the next threat are all getting a heavy dose of essential funding and priority. However, penny-pinching resource allocations and prohibitive restrictions around support to casualties of the last fight clearly have devastating effects. Care for our current injured members sets the start line for the total commitment of our soldiers and their families for the next round in the defence of peace and human rights.
Nova Scotia – where Lionel Desmond lived and where I am now based with the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative – is home to a disproportionate number of veterans. To utilize the strengths and skills of injured vets, while giving them a second chance to serve, the Dallaire Initiative has instituted a training program – through which Canadian military veterans assist in the dissemination of a new doctrine to reduce battle casualties and help eradicate the use of child soldiers globally.
The Canadian government would do well to follow suit: to seek out injured veterans and provide them whatever tools they require to rejoin society after their missions, for all our sakes.
As I wrote in my last book:
“I find myself empty now, at a loss for words. Over the past two years, I mustered what I had left to share the details of my own struggles with PTSD. I turn to those pages now.
It was not easy for me to share my vulnerabilities so candidly, but the dark side of living with PTSD has to come out. If it does not, the world will continue to hear of us only when we commit suicide. … Courageous soldiers serving in today’s difficult and ethically ambiguous missions can and should be treated for PTSD at its first signs; the Forces should anticipate the need for treatment in order to head the damage off, not just wait until a soldier is desperate enough to seek help. And we – meaning all of us – need to shoulder our share of the burden and recognize the contribution made by our soldiers when they undertake such missions on behalf of humanity. We need to insist that they are supported when they come home.
The brain is as vital to life as any organ in the human body. To treat an injury to the brain as less urgent, less in need of care and compassion than other, more obvious types of injury is misguided and ignorant. Our efforts to treat our veterans with PTSD must be comparable to our efforts to repair damaged hearts, provide timely kidney transplants, avoid amputations or restore eyesight. … Only when we truly understand the injury and take action to mitigate its impact will we be able to say that we recognize the real costs of peacekeeping, peacemaking and war.”
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Lieutenant-General (ret) Roméo Dallaire is the founder of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative at Dalhousie University, and author of Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD.
Showing posts with label Tracking Veteran Suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tracking Veteran Suicide. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Not helping veterans could turn into national security problem: Military Ombudsman
By: Rebecca Joseph and Amy Minsky, Global News
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Canada’s approach to transitioning Canadian Forces members out of service is fundamentally flawed — and, if it’s not addressed, could lead to national security problems, said Canadian Armed Forces ombudsman Gary Walbourne.
The root of the problem is the fact many Forces members are released before adequate support is set up, he said in an interview on The West Block.
“I think … the service delivery model we’re using for the transitioning member, I think it’s fundamentally flawed,” Walbourne said. “And I think the major flaw is that we release people before they’re ready or before the systems are in place to help them.”
READ MORE: Family ‘trying to hang in there’ following Nova Scotia murder-suicide
He says he’s already recommended that no member of the armed forces be released until all benefits, including pension and their contact with Veteran’s Affairs, are put in place.
“If we don’t change the position and the approach we have, I think the conversation is going to change away from transitioning members to national security,” he said.
“I do believe that if we could get back to that one recommendation of holding the member until everything was in place, I think we could have a different conversation next year.”
The apparent murder-suicide of a Nova Scotia veteran and his family last week left the country reeling.
Lionel Desmond shot and killed his wife Shanna, 10-year-old daughter Aaliyah and mother Brenda, before turning the gun on himself, RCMP say.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Surge of Afghanistan veterans to test Canadian mental-health care resource
By: LES PERREAUX, Globe and Mail
For the first time since Canada went to war in Afghanistan, the number of soldiers who served there and retired will outnumber those still in the military, a tipping point that will shift a significant mental-health care burden from the army to overstretched provinces and Veterans Affairs.
As of late November, 22,059 of the 40,026 military personnel who served in Afghanistan remained in the Canadian Armed Forces, according to the military. At the recent rate of retirement, the number will slip below half in 2017 and fall rapidly from there.
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr says his department is ready for the sudden increase in volume of former soldiers with recent combat experience. Advocates and mental-health experts doubt the department’s preparedness, noting civilian patients already face long waits for mental-health treatment.
A Globe and Mail investigation into suicide by men and women who served in the Afghanistan war confirmed 71 cases up until November. Among those people, 15 had been released from the military, but advocates like Mr. Harding say many more than 15 have died this way and gone undocumented. A study of Canadian veterans using data from a 2010 survey found 6 per cent had suicidal thoughts. Other surveys have found 25 per cent have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or drug and alcohol abuse.
The Canadian Armed Forces invest heavily in the well-being of its personnel and has made progress screening, tracking and studying mental-health issues in the ranks – particularly suicide rates that seem to be growing among soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. But care shifts to overburdened provincial and territorial health-care providers as people leave the military and are no longer CAF’s responsibility. Meanwhile, Veterans Affairs still has no comprehensive system for monitoring veterans’ health.
“The day a soldier takes off the uniform, they cease to be systematically tracked,” said Brian Harding, a veterans’ advocate who is a member of Mr. Hehr’s mental-health advisory group. For several years, Mr. Harding and others have been pushing Veterans Affairs to produce data on the scope of the suicides. “Canada did not previously have a reckoning of mental-health issues among veterans in any sizable cohort in modern history. We didn’t have Vietnam. We had to deal with this fresh,” Mr. Harding said.
Veterans Affairs officials say they are in contact with 250,000 of Canada’s 600,000 military veterans, most of whom never served in Afghanistan. Under current legislation, veterans must initiate contact with the department. Veterans Affairs is setting up a system to collect statistical data on suicide among veterans from outside agencies. Details have not been released, and the first annual report is not expected until late 2017.
Veterans Affairs’ share of caring for Afghanistan combat veterans has accelerated rapidly in recent years. In 2013, only 21 per cent of soldiers who served in Afghanistan had been released. In 2016, that figure reached 45 per cent, and will pass 50 per cent by the fall of 2017.
Mr. Hehr said his department is ready. “I believe we are,” he said in a recent interview. “We understand that the people who served in Afghanistan will be coming out. We started mapping this out, that many will need mental-health support and physical support when they leave their service.”
While Veterans Affairs cannot force veterans to get help or submit to public-health tracking, he said the department must continue to improve communications. “What we have to do as Veterans Affairs Canada is say we’re open for business,” he said. “We’re here for support. But we can’t force anybody to come through our doors.”
Soldiers have a host of health advantages over veterans and other civilians, Mr. Harding said. “They have easy access to health care, better access to mental-health resources than civilians, and ready access to peer support,” he said. “They get specific training in mental resilience. Leadership is trained to watch for signs of struggle. Sick-leave benefits are excellent.”
Five veteran suicide cases examined in detail in The Globe investigation bolster the point that access to services drops when soldiers retire. The parents of retired private Tyler Hulme described how he overdosed on medication about a month after his release. He had been told it would be a four-month wait for a civilian psychiatrist in Ontario. Retired sergeant Raynald Côté did seek and receive treatment, but fell into isolation and despair with little of the peer support he had in the army.
Retired sergeant Claude Emond had a civilian psychiatrist and massage therapist. “He had services, but when he’d come back from sessions, he felt it was superficial. They didn’t understand his military background and seemed to just be checking boxes,” said his wife, Sylvie Duchesne.
Veterans Affairs provides an array of services from 1-800 crisis hotlines to education funding and mental-health treatment. The department started funding new clinics for operational stress injury in major centres in 2007. They have slowly spread across the country and are operated by provincial health authorities.
Most front-line services are provided by insurance companies, private contractors, service groups and the health ministries and social services of the provinces and territories. The system can be a bewildering tangle for vets.
Alexandra Heber, the newly appointed chief psychiatrist for Veterans Affairs, said untangling that web is one of the keys to planning for the biggest cohort of combat vets since the Korean War in the 1950s. “Over the years, we’ve had one service added on top of something else and something else. We are creating more organization for all of those services,” she said.
But Deborah Harrison, a psychologist and retired professor, has studied the effects of deployment on military families and recently co-wrote a book on military children called Growing up in Armyville. She says Canada is unprepared for the mental-health burden the war will place on provinces already short of psychiatrists, psychologists and other providers.
“We don’t always grasp how historically significant the Afghanistan deployment was,” Dr. Harrison said. “It was the longest military engagement in Canadian history. It was a very dangerous deployment and much more stressful for soldiers and families than previous deployments.
“It was known there would be casualties, but nobody was prepared for the unmeetable demands on Canada’s mental-health care system from that deployment.”
For the first time since Canada went to war in Afghanistan, the number of soldiers who served there and retired will outnumber those still in the military, a tipping point that will shift a significant mental-health care burden from the army to overstretched provinces and Veterans Affairs.
 |
| A Canadian soldier walks during a patrol at the village of Bazaar e Panjwai in Kandahar May 29, 2009. (JORGE SILVA/REUTERS) |
Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr says his department is ready for the sudden increase in volume of former soldiers with recent combat experience. Advocates and mental-health experts doubt the department’s preparedness, noting civilian patients already face long waits for mental-health treatment.
A Globe and Mail investigation into suicide by men and women who served in the Afghanistan war confirmed 71 cases up until November. Among those people, 15 had been released from the military, but advocates like Mr. Harding say many more than 15 have died this way and gone undocumented. A study of Canadian veterans using data from a 2010 survey found 6 per cent had suicidal thoughts. Other surveys have found 25 per cent have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or drug and alcohol abuse.
The Canadian Armed Forces invest heavily in the well-being of its personnel and has made progress screening, tracking and studying mental-health issues in the ranks – particularly suicide rates that seem to be growing among soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. But care shifts to overburdened provincial and territorial health-care providers as people leave the military and are no longer CAF’s responsibility. Meanwhile, Veterans Affairs still has no comprehensive system for monitoring veterans’ health.
“The day a soldier takes off the uniform, they cease to be systematically tracked,” said Brian Harding, a veterans’ advocate who is a member of Mr. Hehr’s mental-health advisory group. For several years, Mr. Harding and others have been pushing Veterans Affairs to produce data on the scope of the suicides. “Canada did not previously have a reckoning of mental-health issues among veterans in any sizable cohort in modern history. We didn’t have Vietnam. We had to deal with this fresh,” Mr. Harding said.
Veterans Affairs officials say they are in contact with 250,000 of Canada’s 600,000 military veterans, most of whom never served in Afghanistan. Under current legislation, veterans must initiate contact with the department. Veterans Affairs is setting up a system to collect statistical data on suicide among veterans from outside agencies. Details have not been released, and the first annual report is not expected until late 2017.
Veterans Affairs’ share of caring for Afghanistan combat veterans has accelerated rapidly in recent years. In 2013, only 21 per cent of soldiers who served in Afghanistan had been released. In 2016, that figure reached 45 per cent, and will pass 50 per cent by the fall of 2017.
Mr. Hehr said his department is ready. “I believe we are,” he said in a recent interview. “We understand that the people who served in Afghanistan will be coming out. We started mapping this out, that many will need mental-health support and physical support when they leave their service.”
While Veterans Affairs cannot force veterans to get help or submit to public-health tracking, he said the department must continue to improve communications. “What we have to do as Veterans Affairs Canada is say we’re open for business,” he said. “We’re here for support. But we can’t force anybody to come through our doors.”
Soldiers have a host of health advantages over veterans and other civilians, Mr. Harding said. “They have easy access to health care, better access to mental-health resources than civilians, and ready access to peer support,” he said. “They get specific training in mental resilience. Leadership is trained to watch for signs of struggle. Sick-leave benefits are excellent.”
Five veteran suicide cases examined in detail in The Globe investigation bolster the point that access to services drops when soldiers retire. The parents of retired private Tyler Hulme described how he overdosed on medication about a month after his release. He had been told it would be a four-month wait for a civilian psychiatrist in Ontario. Retired sergeant Raynald Côté did seek and receive treatment, but fell into isolation and despair with little of the peer support he had in the army.
Retired sergeant Claude Emond had a civilian psychiatrist and massage therapist. “He had services, but when he’d come back from sessions, he felt it was superficial. They didn’t understand his military background and seemed to just be checking boxes,” said his wife, Sylvie Duchesne.
Veterans Affairs provides an array of services from 1-800 crisis hotlines to education funding and mental-health treatment. The department started funding new clinics for operational stress injury in major centres in 2007. They have slowly spread across the country and are operated by provincial health authorities.
Most front-line services are provided by insurance companies, private contractors, service groups and the health ministries and social services of the provinces and territories. The system can be a bewildering tangle for vets.
Alexandra Heber, the newly appointed chief psychiatrist for Veterans Affairs, said untangling that web is one of the keys to planning for the biggest cohort of combat vets since the Korean War in the 1950s. “Over the years, we’ve had one service added on top of something else and something else. We are creating more organization for all of those services,” she said.
But Deborah Harrison, a psychologist and retired professor, has studied the effects of deployment on military families and recently co-wrote a book on military children called Growing up in Armyville. She says Canada is unprepared for the mental-health burden the war will place on provinces already short of psychiatrists, psychologists and other providers.
“We don’t always grasp how historically significant the Afghanistan deployment was,” Dr. Harrison said. “It was the longest military engagement in Canadian history. It was a very dangerous deployment and much more stressful for soldiers and families than previous deployments.
“It was known there would be casualties, but nobody was prepared for the unmeetable demands on Canada’s mental-health care system from that deployment.”
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Ottawa to Track Veteran Suicides
Ever since the Globe and Mail investigation; The Unremembered which conclusively showed that 54 CAF members committed suicide following deployments to Afghanistan, nearly 1/3 of all combat related deaths within Afghanistan - there has been a greater call for Veterans Affairs to take a closer look at Veterans and current serving CAF members following deployments.
The Globe and Mail released today that Ottawa will now regularly track veteran suicides.
Here is the article written by RENATA D’ALIESIO
Veterans Affairs is taking steps to solve a crucial statistical gap by planning to report on suicides of former military members annually starting in late 2017 – a move that will disclose, for the first time, how many vets are taking their lives each year in Canada.
While the coming change is taking too long for some veterans advocates, it will mark a milestone when implemented: Suicides of released military members have never been regularly tracked in Canada, even after intense combat missions, such as the Second World War and Korea.
INVESTIGATION
The Unremembered
158 Canadian soldiers died in the Afghanistan mission. But the losses did not end there. A Globe and Mail investigation reveals a disturbing number the military has kept secret: that at least 54 soldiers and vets killed themselves after they returned from war
In a statement Tuesday, Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr said that “better tracking and reporting on suicides will help inform our suicide prevention actions.” He added that the Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs must continue to address the stigma of mental health and encourage those in need to seek treatment.
“Even one soldier, sailor, airmen or women suffering from the invisible wounds of a mental health injury or committing suicide, is one too many,” Mr. Hehr said.
The lack of monitoring was one of several failings highlighted in a Globe and Mail investigation of suicides of soldiers who died after serving in the 13-year Afghanistan war. Through an Access to Information request to National Defence and poring over more than a decade’s worth of death notices, The Globe found that at least 48 active-duty soldiers and six veterans had taken their lives after returning from the Afghanistan operation.
The Canadian Forces released an updated number soon after The Globe’s investigation was published in late October, raising the suicide count to at least 59 military members and veterans – more than one-third of the number of soldiers who died in the war. There were 158 Canadian military deaths in theatre during the NATO-led combat operation that began in 2001 and ended last year.
Since The Globe’s series of stories, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instructed the ministers of Veterans Affairs and National Defence to make a new suicide-prevention strategy a priority. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, a veteran of the Afghanistan war, has directed the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, to examine the military’s mental-health services and efforts to reduce suicides.
The Globe’s series also drew attention to the fact that soldiers who died by suicide after returning from Afghanistan are not recognized in the same way as those who perished in the mission, even when their suicides were deemed attributable to military service. On Remembrance Day, Mr. Hehr, who is also associate minister of national defence, told The Globe he wants to ensure these soldiers and vets are commemorated.
The minister is meeting with representatives of about 30 stakeholder groups in Ottawa on Wednesday. The groups have been asked to provide him with feedback on priorities outlined in Mr. Trudeau’s mandate letter.
Gen. Vance applauded the department’s plans to improve the monitoring of former military members. In a statement, he said: “I remain committed to ensuring the well-being of all members of the Canadian Armed Forces, whether they are currently serving or veterans.”
Veterans advocates have long vented frustration at Canada’s lack of suicide tracking of former soldiers. The Canadian Forces keeps tabs on the number of active-duty military members who kill themselves, although its data on reservists are incomplete. A recent report released by the military’s surgeon-general revealed that suicides have increased in the army in recent years and the impact of overseas deployment may be emerging as a risk factor.
Canada’s only comprehensive look at veterans’ suicides showed that former members make up the lion’s share of military suicides in Canada. The Canadian Forces Cancer and Mortality Study, released in 2011, was done in partnership with Statistics Canada, National Defence and Veterans Affairs. It revealed that 78 per cent of 934 military suicides documented from 1972 to the end of 2006 involved vets. Male veterans were 1.5 times more likely to die by suicide than Canadian men of the same age – an increased risk that translated into 231 more vet deaths than expected.
David Pedlar, director of research for Veterans Affairs, said the department will be watching to see if vet suicides remain elevated. Officially known as the Veteran Suicide Mortality Study, the examination will involve linking National Defence data – which includes whether a member was released from the military – with Statistics Canada’s database of deaths from all provinces and territories. (Names of military members will be removed after the data are linked.)
Dr. Pedlar, who is leading the project that began late last year, said the methodology is still being ironed out. At the moment, it’s unclear how far back the first annual suicide report will go. Initial analysis will not include deployment history, Dr. Pedlar said, but both vets who were clients of Veterans Affairs and those who were not will be captured in the study.
“Right now the focus is on being able to get a high-quality suicide number and rate for release to Canadians on an annual basis,” Dr. Pedlar said. The study, he added, will give “us trends over time, which is something we don’t have right now. … That will be important information for us.”
The study has taken a lot of time to put together because it involves two departments and a federal agency, Dr. Pedlar said. Data quality has been an issue, too. The 2011 study that showed an increased suicide risk among veterans relied on National Defence human-resources information that did not accurately capture deployment history, said Elizabeth Rolland-Harris, a senior epidemiologist with the military’s directorate of force health protection.
“It was clear that we needed to find better data,” she said in an interview at a military health-research conference in Quebec City last week.
Dr. Rolland-Harris is leading the second run of the Canadian Forces Cancer and Mortality Study, which will produce a separate report from the veteran suicide study. She said the new examination will use member pay data, which is more reliable, and include those who enrolled in the military between January, 1976, and mid-2015.
The pay data will allow researchers to look at deployment and occupational history and to include Class C reservists who served full-time at some point during the nearly 40-year period. Class C designations are applied when reservists deploy to missions such as Afghanistan. Reservists were excluded in the 2011 study.
Initial results from the new cancer and mortality study are expected in 2017. Dr. Rolland-Harris said the examination will be one of the most comprehensive military suicide studies ever done in the world.
Still, former veterans ombudsman Pat Stogran is frustrated that the public will have to wait another two years to get a clearer picture on how many vets are taking their lives annually. He believes regular tracking of vet suicides could already be happening, if there had been a will to do so.
“This is a demographic that the federal government has complete control over,” said Mr. Stogran, a retired colonel. “We got to start demanding transparency and accountability and value for money.”
Follow Renata D’Aliesio on Twitter: @renatadaliesio
The Globe and Mail released today that Ottawa will now regularly track veteran suicides.
Here is the article written by RENATA D’ALIESIO
Veterans Affairs is taking steps to solve a crucial statistical gap by planning to report on suicides of former military members annually starting in late 2017 – a move that will disclose, for the first time, how many vets are taking their lives each year in Canada.
While the coming change is taking too long for some veterans advocates, it will mark a milestone when implemented: Suicides of released military members have never been regularly tracked in Canada, even after intense combat missions, such as the Second World War and Korea.
INVESTIGATION
The Unremembered
158 Canadian soldiers died in the Afghanistan mission. But the losses did not end there. A Globe and Mail investigation reveals a disturbing number the military has kept secret: that at least 54 soldiers and vets killed themselves after they returned from war
In a statement Tuesday, Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr said that “better tracking and reporting on suicides will help inform our suicide prevention actions.” He added that the Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs must continue to address the stigma of mental health and encourage those in need to seek treatment.
“Even one soldier, sailor, airmen or women suffering from the invisible wounds of a mental health injury or committing suicide, is one too many,” Mr. Hehr said.
The lack of monitoring was one of several failings highlighted in a Globe and Mail investigation of suicides of soldiers who died after serving in the 13-year Afghanistan war. Through an Access to Information request to National Defence and poring over more than a decade’s worth of death notices, The Globe found that at least 48 active-duty soldiers and six veterans had taken their lives after returning from the Afghanistan operation.
The Canadian Forces released an updated number soon after The Globe’s investigation was published in late October, raising the suicide count to at least 59 military members and veterans – more than one-third of the number of soldiers who died in the war. There were 158 Canadian military deaths in theatre during the NATO-led combat operation that began in 2001 and ended last year.
Since The Globe’s series of stories, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instructed the ministers of Veterans Affairs and National Defence to make a new suicide-prevention strategy a priority. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, a veteran of the Afghanistan war, has directed the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, to examine the military’s mental-health services and efforts to reduce suicides.
The Globe’s series also drew attention to the fact that soldiers who died by suicide after returning from Afghanistan are not recognized in the same way as those who perished in the mission, even when their suicides were deemed attributable to military service. On Remembrance Day, Mr. Hehr, who is also associate minister of national defence, told The Globe he wants to ensure these soldiers and vets are commemorated.
The minister is meeting with representatives of about 30 stakeholder groups in Ottawa on Wednesday. The groups have been asked to provide him with feedback on priorities outlined in Mr. Trudeau’s mandate letter.
Gen. Vance applauded the department’s plans to improve the monitoring of former military members. In a statement, he said: “I remain committed to ensuring the well-being of all members of the Canadian Armed Forces, whether they are currently serving or veterans.”
Veterans advocates have long vented frustration at Canada’s lack of suicide tracking of former soldiers. The Canadian Forces keeps tabs on the number of active-duty military members who kill themselves, although its data on reservists are incomplete. A recent report released by the military’s surgeon-general revealed that suicides have increased in the army in recent years and the impact of overseas deployment may be emerging as a risk factor.
Canada’s only comprehensive look at veterans’ suicides showed that former members make up the lion’s share of military suicides in Canada. The Canadian Forces Cancer and Mortality Study, released in 2011, was done in partnership with Statistics Canada, National Defence and Veterans Affairs. It revealed that 78 per cent of 934 military suicides documented from 1972 to the end of 2006 involved vets. Male veterans were 1.5 times more likely to die by suicide than Canadian men of the same age – an increased risk that translated into 231 more vet deaths than expected.
David Pedlar, director of research for Veterans Affairs, said the department will be watching to see if vet suicides remain elevated. Officially known as the Veteran Suicide Mortality Study, the examination will involve linking National Defence data – which includes whether a member was released from the military – with Statistics Canada’s database of deaths from all provinces and territories. (Names of military members will be removed after the data are linked.)
Dr. Pedlar, who is leading the project that began late last year, said the methodology is still being ironed out. At the moment, it’s unclear how far back the first annual suicide report will go. Initial analysis will not include deployment history, Dr. Pedlar said, but both vets who were clients of Veterans Affairs and those who were not will be captured in the study.
“Right now the focus is on being able to get a high-quality suicide number and rate for release to Canadians on an annual basis,” Dr. Pedlar said. The study, he added, will give “us trends over time, which is something we don’t have right now. … That will be important information for us.”
The study has taken a lot of time to put together because it involves two departments and a federal agency, Dr. Pedlar said. Data quality has been an issue, too. The 2011 study that showed an increased suicide risk among veterans relied on National Defence human-resources information that did not accurately capture deployment history, said Elizabeth Rolland-Harris, a senior epidemiologist with the military’s directorate of force health protection.
“It was clear that we needed to find better data,” she said in an interview at a military health-research conference in Quebec City last week.
Dr. Rolland-Harris is leading the second run of the Canadian Forces Cancer and Mortality Study, which will produce a separate report from the veteran suicide study. She said the new examination will use member pay data, which is more reliable, and include those who enrolled in the military between January, 1976, and mid-2015.
The pay data will allow researchers to look at deployment and occupational history and to include Class C reservists who served full-time at some point during the nearly 40-year period. Class C designations are applied when reservists deploy to missions such as Afghanistan. Reservists were excluded in the 2011 study.
Initial results from the new cancer and mortality study are expected in 2017. Dr. Rolland-Harris said the examination will be one of the most comprehensive military suicide studies ever done in the world.
Still, former veterans ombudsman Pat Stogran is frustrated that the public will have to wait another two years to get a clearer picture on how many vets are taking their lives annually. He believes regular tracking of vet suicides could already be happening, if there had been a will to do so.
“This is a demographic that the federal government has complete control over,” said Mr. Stogran, a retired colonel. “We got to start demanding transparency and accountability and value for money.”
Follow Renata D’Aliesio on Twitter: @renatadaliesio
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