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British military ignores troopers diagnosed with PTSD

03 August 2013 22:53 (UTC +04:00)

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the MoD established that the number of troopers and veterans who have committed suicide during 2012 has surpassed the number of those who have been killed in action over the same period.

According to the figures obtained 21 serving troopers had killed themselves last year, of whom 7 cases have been affirmed and the remaining 14 are pending inquests.

Other figures showed that in addition to serving troopers, at least 29 veterans also took their own life in 2012. This brings the total of number of active or retired service people who killed themselves last year to 50.

This is while that the death toll of the British military in Afghanistan over the same period topped 44, of whom 40 died in combat.

It shows that home the UK government and its army, in particular, are obscuring the true scale of military suicides.

Clinical psychologist Claudia Herbert, one of the UK’s leading PTSD experts, says PTSD is the body’s “natural response to extreme and overwhelmingly distressing events.”

Herbert described that how PTSD might cause someone suffering from the disease try to commit suicide.

“PTSD in itself should not lead to suicide. PTSD is some ways is a warning that the system needs help and needs to regulate again. And the longer that PTSD is left untreated the more complex the condition then becomes.”