Afghanistan veterans not getting needed mental health care in Canada either

Afghanistan veterans not getting needed mental health care, audit finds
Mike Blanchfield , CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, October 30, 2007
OTTAWA - The Canadian Forces are falling short in meeting the mental health needs of soldiers returning from Afghanistan because the demand for care is "outstripping available resources," Auditor General Sheila Fraser said in a report to Parliament Tuesday.

The shortfalls, which came to light as part of a broader audit of the rising cost of military health care, suggest the military has yet to learn some hard lessons of the past decade, when retired general Romeo Dallaire, now a Liberal senator, offered himself as a poster boy for the mental health suffering of many Canadian peacekeepers who served with him in Rwanda or on other operations in the Balkans.

This latest audit suggests that the Defence Department is failing to meet the needs of the new generation of men and women currently serving in Afghanistan as part of the military's most demanding combat mission since the Korean War more than half a century ago.


One disabled veteran of Canada's involvement in the first Persian Gulf War of 1991 questioned how the Forces can justify purchasing $20 billion worth of new planes, helicopters and other hardware, while neglecting the well documented mental health needs of their personnel.
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