'Alarming' rise in suicide deaths by former military personnel

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This was published 8 years ago

'Alarming' rise in suicide deaths by former military personnel

By David Ellery

Australia is on track to lose dozens of former Australian Defence Force personnel to suicide this year but the problem could be much larger with one of the most senior members of the top brass conceding they did not have accurate numbers.

Despite Defence's multibillion-dollar resources, Vice Chief of Defence Force, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs said: "What is the suicide rate amongst the ex-serving community? We just don't know ... People get very energetic and say `you should know'. Well, we'd love to know."

Iraq war veteran Aaron Gray wants more help for military personnel with post traumatic stress disorder.

Iraq war veteran Aaron Gray wants more help for military personnel with post traumatic stress disorder.Credit: Christopher Chan

The ADF was scrambling to plug the information black hole by working with a wide range of stakeholders, including a grassroots suicide register whose founder said his job was "speaking for the dead".

The Australian Veterans' Suicide Register's Aaron Gray, said at least 13 former service personnel had killed themselves by the end of May and if the trend continued, at least another 13 deaths would be reported by the end of December.

"I see myself as speaking for the dead," said Mr Gray, an Iraq War veteran who who had post traumatic stress disorder, and had come close to taking his own life "many times".

"We can't bring them back but I am doing my best to ensure their deaths have not been in vain."

Admiral Griggs, who wanted a "more sophisticated and mature discussion around mental health issues in general", did not believe claims held up that as many as 200 Afghan war veterans had committed suicide.

Figures show 106 serving defence personnel and at least 140 former service personnel had committed suicide since 2000.

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Serious issue

Admiral Griggs and Mr Gray agreed under-reporting in the former service category was a serious issue. Participation in the suicide register was a voluntary choice made by individual families.

"For Afghanistan you see a sharp increase from 2013 until the present. Numbers increased from an average of seven ab year up to 18 in 2013, 19 in 2014 and already 13 to the end of May this year."

Admiral Griggs said when ADF chief medical officer, Rear Admiral Robyn Walker, used the word "anecdotal" to describe former service suicide numbers earlier this year, "people slammed into her".

"[But] how can it be anything but anecdotal if we don't have the data. We're trying to get more and more information so it is less and less anecdotal."

He said there was no clear link between deployment to a war zone and increased rates of PTSD and suicide among serving personnel.

ADF research indicated about 8.3 per cent of all serving military had suffered PTSD, regardless of whether or not they had deployed overseas.

"The same … applies to suicide. Only around 40 per cent of our in-service​ suicides are people who have been deployed."

The serving suicide rate was below the community average. "We do a lot of age and gender matching and I think in places [it is] up to 30 per cent [below]," he said.

One too many

"I'm not saying that to downplay the suicide issue ... one is too many but ... if you can't put these things in context, it is very difficult to have the mature conversation."

Graham Walker, a Vietnam veteran and defence welfare advocate, said such comparisons were meaningless. Pre-screening recruits for physical and mental health issues created a "healthy soldier effect".

"A 2005 DVA sponsored-study into mortality and cancer amongst national servicemen who served in Vietnam found that as a group, they had a 27 per cent lower mortality rate than the same aged Australian population," he said.

"What the study did find was national servicemen who fought in Vietnam were 31 per cent more likely to die in a car accident [possible suicide] and 43 per cent more likely to commit suicide than those who stayed in Australia."

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