Posted: Wednesday 17 February 2010
I’m angry. I’ve just finished reading another article on the armed forces. In this one, the story revolves around the "fact" that women are "more likely to suffer mental problems" than their male colleagues. After spending over a year working on Mind’s Men and Mental Health campaign, I’m smarting at this statement.
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It’s not that men are less likely than women to experience mental distress; it’s that men are much less likely to seek help for it. It’s just this kind of approach – only looking at the figures and not the reasons behind them – that leads to services not adequately meeting the needs of its users.
But that’s not all that I’m angry about. Whatever your political point of view, I imagine that we can all agree that the human cost to our servicemen and women as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been devastating. At time of writing, the wars have taken the lives of 440 UK troops and left many more injured. But this is not the half of it. What about the injuries that aren’t so visible? Taking into account the stress they are put under, it’s unsurprising that many servicemen and women experience some form of mental distress, post-traumatic stress disorder in particular.
And so we come to the source of my frustration. Despite the mental trauma military personnel experience, there is only one main specialist mental health organisation in the whole of the UK for ex-services personnel - Combat Stress. In 2008 alone they worked with 2,500 ex-services personnel, of which 1,160 were new cases. And figures from the charity suggest that the rate of mental distress among veterans is rising.
Although Combat Stress provides an amazing amount of support to a large number of people, they cannot and should not be responsible for all ex-services personnel. But other services just aren’t always available.
Things are so bad that even some of the Army’s brightest starts have criticised the government’s treatment of ex-soldiers. Last year, Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry, the most decorated soldier in the British Army, spoke out last year about the “disgraceful” treatment of soldiers experiencing mental distress. And only last week another ex-soldier came forward to denounce the ‘complacent attitude’ shown to veterans that end up in the prison system.
Things may be about to change. In January, the Government announced plans to improve NHS care for veterans and said that this would include mental health services. Perhaps this is only lip service. But, even if something is delivered, steps to improve treatment for veterans will only succeed if the particular needs of soldiers – and the needs of men (the majority of ex-services personnel are male) – are properly taken into account. Without such consideration, these plans really could be too little, too late.
Mariam Kemple, Policy and Campaigns Officer
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››Tell us your thoughts on how the mental health needs of men can be met.
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