Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, May 04, 2012

Defence department to cut mental health staff despite spike in suicides

OTTAWA—The Defence Department is looking at closing a unit that monitors the mental health of soldiers and works on suicide prevention just days after the military revealed a sharp spike in the number of those who took their own lives in 2011.

Amid thousands of layoff notices delivered to public servants last month, two federal unions say staff in the Department of National Defence’s deployment health section have received warnings that their positions may be eliminated.

In addition, the union says the department wants to get rid of another eight positions currently staffed by epidemiologists and researchers who work on mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide within the Canadian Forces.

Officials in the office of Defence Minister Peter MacKay said “no decisions have been taken yet.”

But the military will be moving an Ottawa clinic that treats soldiers with psychological problems to CFB Petawawa, a two-hour drive from the capital. The bulk of the soldiers being treated at that clinic are currently forced to make that drive in order to receive treatment, spokesman Jay Paxton said.

“Our government believes CF members are better treated where they work, train and live,” MacKay said in a statement.

The minister’s optimism is tempered by an internal report obtained by the Ottawa Citizen that says the base’s mental health services are “in crisis” and doctors are scrambling to provide basic care to troubled soldiers.

All this comes just days after the military released annual suicide statistics indicating that the number of soldiers who killed themselves in 2011 increased sharply over previous years, something that the force says could be a blip or the beginning of an upward trend.

Lawmakers and other experts on the convergence of conflict and psychological problems have predicted that the military will face an increasing number of soldiers suffering from mental health problems now that the 10-year combat mission in Afghanistan has ended.

The military’s deployment health section, created in 2002, focuses on the unique physical and psychological problems facing soldiers who have been sent overseas. It is made up of four staff, including three epidemiologists and a database manager.

The unit is led by Dr. Mark Zamorski and has produced important reports in recent years on the management of brain injuries such as those suffered by soldiers targeted in roadside bomb blasts in Afghanistan. Medical studies have shown a link between mild traumatic brain injury, or concussions, and later mental health problems.

Zamorski has also chaired an expert panel on suicide prevention in the Canadian Forces.

Speaking earlier this week about the figures that showed 20 soldiers committed suicide last year, up from 12 in 2010, the defence minister said it’s a serious problem that the military is grappling with.

“There’s no question that the effects of deployments and particularly of exposure to combat has a debilitating effect on the mental health of Canadian Forces members,” MacKay said.

But Claude Poirier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, said the planned job cuts show a disconnect between what the government is saying and what it plans to do.

“We’re hoping that if we go public with what they are doing right now maybe the minister will reconsider,” he said, pointing to a recent decision by Foreign Minister John Baird to cancel the planned auction of paintings owned by the department after public outcry.

He said the issue was not necessarily saving four jobs among an estimated 19,000 that will be cut from the bureaucracy, but rather, the important services that could be lost.

“If we don’t have data on the source of these problems, how can we have appropriate programs to treat them?” Poirier said. “These specific individuals and the kind of services that they are providing the department are irreplaceable.”

Questioned in the Commons on Thursday, MacKay said the Conservative government had made major investments to provide mental-health services to Canadian soldiers. That includes creating on-base support units that arrange counselling, therapy and administrative support for ill and injured soldiers and boosting to the number of mental health professionals available to soldiers.

Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Allan Woods

No comments:

Post a Comment