More soldiers seeking help for mental illness: Manitoba clinic

Waiting lists are stretching from a few weeks to months for Manitoba soldiers seeking psychological help, say officials at a Winnipeg clinic.

Referrals from the Canadian Forces are up 78 per cent over last year, officials at the Operational Stress Injury Clinic in Winnipeg said Friday.

Operational Stress, sometimes known as combat stress, is the term used to describe any persistent psychological problem resulting from military service, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

"They're coming for mental health issues, so they may have problems with depression, poor sleep, anxiety, intrusive memories, irritability a whole gamut of things," said Dr. Nancy Prober, a psychologist and clinical co-ordinator at the clinic.

The wait time for a psychological assessment at the clinic is currently two to three months and is expected to increase in the next few months, according to the clinic's website.

Nearly all of the soldiers seeking the clinic's help have recently returned from Afghanistan, Prober said.

"We've seen the highest number of casualties there, higher than since probably the Korean War, so there's just more soldiers being exposed to life-threatening situations," she said.

"Probably in addition to that, we also have a Canadian military who I think has become more sensitive to the issue of operational stress injuries, so soldiers are getting identified as needing help a little bit sooner."

About 800 soldiers at Canadian Forces Base Shilo, near Brandon, Man., are preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in early 2008.

Prober said she hopes the department of Veterans Affairs will help to fund another psychologist to help deal with the clinic's increased workload.

The Winnipeg clinic first opened in 2004, and currently has a staff of three psychologists, a psychiatrist, a social worker, a nurse therapist and support staff.

A 2002 study commissioned by the Department of National Defence indicated the most common mental illness in the Canadian Forces is depression, followed by alcoholism, social phobia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

About 15 per cent of regular force members and 10 per cent of reservists will develop depression at some point in their lives, the according to the survey.