The Canadian mission in Afghanistan has raised some rather serious and disturbing questions about whether or not Canadian soldiers are getting the appropriate mental health care upon return from combat duty. Operational stress injuries can include anxiety disorder, disordered sleeping, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression, to name just a few. This is a poorly understood field, and one that receives significantly less attention that other forms of combat injury. The office of the Ombudsman recommended in 2002 a variety of measures to be taken, the status of which remain unknown. In the US, incidents of operational stress injury have been linked to domestic violence and murder.
As a former member of the Canadian Forces, it was my experience that mental health issues were not tackled adequately. Where physical injuries received exceptional support (within the confines of the Canadian medical system), mental health issues were marginalized, downplayed, or outright ignored. Significant work needs to be done to give soldiers access to mental health resources, and to de-stigmatize mental health issues within the Canadian Forces.
However, without significant research into this area, there will be little traditional mental health care workers will be able to do. Mental health is a much neglected and marginalized field of study, and combine it with military operations, and it becomes a serious subspecialty. As more Canadian soldiers return from active combat, I sincerely hope that we don’t see an increase in domestic violence and other manifestations of operational stress injury, but I suspect that will, in fact, be the case. Is Canada prepared to deal with it?
27 June 2009 Update: It looks like the Globe and Mail has picked up on this, and that the CF will at least pretend to do something about it.
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