Veteran’s Suicide: Nothing is happening.

The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is floundering.

A close relative who is a non-commissioned officer in the British Army, recently told me some very disturbing news. Two of his men, two friends, have committed suicide not long after demobilization. Full final coroner’s reports are yet to confirm this, but out of his cohort of one hundred soldiers, it seems likely that these last two were part of a group of eight soldiers, eight veterans who have died this way.  

The baseline suicide rate of the United Kingdom and Australia is eleven persons per 100,000. If we applied the suicide rate of my relative’s cohort of 100 soldiers to the whole population, eight thousand people would have killed themselves.

The situation in Australia is much the same. Veterans suicide in far higher numbers, especially among soldiers who have significant health issues by which I mean have ended their service life and continue to require treatment recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It should be remembered that the sheer number of frontline troops in harm’s way and the severity and scope of conflict in war is much higher for the British. Also the Australian figures ‘capture’ only those veterans who are listed as having a form of disability or have made a treatment claim. All other veterans who have quietly left service without health claims then suicide, are not picked up. Nonetheless, in any terms, far too many veterans kill themselves.

My own family history contains a close relative, a decorated veteran, who took his own life back in times when suicides were regarded with shame and their families were denied assistance, often, falling into poverty.

Incompetence and sheer bad management of disturbed Veterans in this country are rife and have always been so. Take the case of a veteran recently shot and killed by police in Townsville in April 2023. This was clearly a case of “suicide by cop.”

Stephen Angus, a fifty-two-year-old army veteran, became so disturbed the police had to come to his house and remove him to the Townsville Hospital Mental Health Unit. He was seen there and released only a matter of a few hours later.

He was acutely agitated and threatening self-harm, so the police were called again the very next day to assist him and his family. Acutely distressed, he lunged at them with a knife and was shot dead. Though the full circumstances of the case will not be known for some time because the government will delay the coroner’s inquest for years if they can, one thing is certain, Mr. Angus could not possibly have had a proper assessment in the very few hours he was kept at the Townsville Hospital.

Government commissions have been held into the Townsville hospital over the years and books are written about it including my own which is presented on the website of this blog. It is no surprise that this hospital should again be the subject of a serious mental health scandal. However, the problem is far wider than this.

The Federal government has set up a Royal Commission into Veteran’s Suicide. When first told this by family members of veterans and colleagues, I expressed the view that this would achieve nothing. The reasons for this are as follows.

Royal Commissions into Mental Health issues and health-related deaths have a very poor record in this country. There are many examples. The Townsville Hospital had its own Royal Commission some years ago, but standards have not improved. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody has not led to any persons being held culpable for the single death of an Indigenous person even though there have been hundreds of deaths in custody.

Once again in my book, I describe in detail one such death, proven in a Coroner’s Inquest to be the result of mismanagement by a hospital, the managers of which were not only not held responsible but, rather, promoted.

The Royal Commission in Aged Care has been another disaster. In attempting to slavishly follow the recommendations of that Commission the Government will most likely shut down the Nursing Home Industry. As it is, Wesley Mission closed all of its nursing homes, throwing hundreds of its elderly residents “into the street”. So far 23 nursing homes have had to close.

What is also not widely acknowledged is that the taser related death of the 95-year-old Clare Nowland can be laid squarely at the foot of the Royal Commission into Aged Care.

 Dr. Phillip Norrie, Federal AMA president, pointed out in an article written in 2021 that recommendations made by this Commission effectively removed family doctors from behavioural management of older persons. This created a process in which police, instead of family doctors, would be called in to assist nursing home staff if they were reluctant to restrain or sedate demented patients. Police have no training in restraint of the elderly. They use Tasers and handcuffs. Dr. Norrie suggested that the Aged Care Commissioners seem to be “from another planet”. Debacles like this will continue, and the Royal Commission into Veterans Suicide will follow with their own.

How do I know this? We already have some of its preliminary recommendations, none of which give any cause for hope.  These thirteen initial recommendations are written in legalese which would be totally incomprehensible to the ordinary veteran and say nothing about suicide nor do they give the slightest indication where this commission is going nor how it proposes to further investigate or deal with this serious issue. This commission was set up to assist veterans and their families, not totally confuse them.

 At the heart of the problem is the “Mental Health Industry”. This industry is comprised of the mass of psychiatrists and psychologists who work in the public and private health industry of this country.

Despite providing years of expensive treatment, this industry has failed to make an impact on veterans’ suicide rates. Despite this the Veterans Royal Commission has heavily relied on this industry to provide the expertise and, in its most recent deliberations, proposes to give even more money to the people who work in it.

The Commission has failed to acknowledge the fact that most veterans who commit suicide are not mentally ill and in most instances psychiatrists and psychologists have little to offer them because most suicides are impulsive and unpredictable.

Psychiatrists are outrageously expensive to see and most refuse to accept the rebated fee only (the amount Veterans Affairs pay them to see the patient) and so they mostly charge the veteran a large additional gap fee. For example, a local psychiatrist charges three times the rebated fee.

When I worked in the field, my colleagues did not like to see veterans because of this lower rebate and found veterans and their problems too difficult to deal with. Psychologists in this country are poorly trained and ill-equipped to deal with veterans and often complete their whole training without seeing either a veteran or a person with serious mental health issues.

Those psychiatrists who do see veterans give them too many drugs and leave the “counseling” to untrained psychologists who then work with them. This is often done by admitting veterans to private mental hospitals, keeping them there, and charging the Department of Veterans Affairs huge fees for private inpatient care.

Veterans who want to see psychiatrists will wait months for the privilege. When they are seen the consultations are limited in duration and sparse in frequency, often less than monthly.

One asks what magic takes place in these consultations like laying on of the “king’s touch” (an ancient remedy where one touch of the king could cure an illness) as infrequently as once each month and how could this benefit a veteran or help him or her with their life.

There is no 24/7 care. When the veteran phones the psychologist or psychiatrist they are told to make another appointment in a month. Where are these psychiatrists when a veteran’s marriage falls apart or when he becomes homeless or loses everything? When I served overseas the survival rate of a helicopter pilot’s marriage was less than 40% and many died by suicide.

The mental health industry absorbs millions or perhaps billions of dollars in providing this inadequate and infrequent care. Yet this industry is providing the “expertise” to the Commission to formulate its findings. Veterans need someone they can turn to at any time in their life when there is a crisis. That will prevent suicide.

When I returned from overseas service, I was given a medal and a thank you letter. That was all. While it was true that I did not deserve more than this because I was not injured, many other veterans were traumatized and severely injured and yet got the same response.  

What was really needed was for me to be part of a supportive and supporting network of veterans who could be there for each other who could meet often and be part of a strong network that mirrored the close bonds we formed while in service. A network would ensure that there was always someone there at times of crisis, a group of people who met regularly and spoke often.

Mostly when soldiers leave the services there is nothing and no one there for them. There may be their families but there is not a strong group of fellow servicemen and women who understand what they have been through.

Fortunately, I was not a casualty of conflict, but I had a lot of skills that could be used to help those who are. The money needed to establish this network and to facilitate regular meetings and facilities to host them would be a fraction of the money wasted on the mental health industry which so far has done nothing to support veterans and prevent their suicides.  Most of these men are not mentally ill but they are lost. We can help find them again.

The Royal Commission into Veterans Suicide has been handed a poison chalice. Regardless of all the other things they have been tasked with, they have to solve one central problem. How do you reduce the rate of suicide in veterans?  Suicide may be impossible to eliminate but it can be greatly reduced.

This may be why this commission is taking so long and struggling to find answers. If the rate of veteran suicide does not fall when their final recommendations are implemented, they will be found to be no better than all the other Royal Commissions into health matters in our history that have led, mostly, nowhere.