STRESS DE GUERRA - TROPAS BRITÂNICAS NO IRAQUE

Do nosso enviado ao Abu Dhabi, Al Marqktoum K'urhreiah, na foto, recebemos o seguinte despacho:

Caros leitores, o jornal Khaleej Times, trazia na semana passada uma interessante notícia, que se transcreve na íntegra, sobre a incidência esperada do Stress de Guerra entre as tropas britânicas no Iraque e Afeganistão. Aí vai!

"Mental health alert for UK troops leaving Iraq

GOVT DECIDES TO INCREASE FUNDING TO 'COMBAT STRESS'

By Luke Baker

LONDON - As Britain prepares to pull hundreds of troops out of Iraq, doctors and nurses at home are get-in ready to treat not only their physical wounds, but also the psychological ones.

More than four years of conflict in Iraq, and six years of fighting in Afghanistan, have taken a toll on the armed forces, both in terms of the number killed - at last count 252 - as well as the number mentally and physically wounded In the past week, the government has taken steps to tackle both aspects of the problem, amid criticism from the families of retuning soldiers and some veterans' groups that not enough is being done to assist those fighting the unpopular wars.

One move was to increase the lump-sum payments made to soldiers severely wounded in attacks to as much as $570,000.

But potentially more crucial in the long term was a decision to increase funding to Combat Stress, a charity that helps veterans suffering from severe war-induced mental conditions. Combat Stress was founded a year after World War I to help servicemen returning with what was then called "shell shock" but today is often defined as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The charity has around 8,000 patients on its books including veterans of World War II the Falklands War, the first Gulf War, the Balkans and now Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decision to increase its funding - by a substantial 45 per cent - comes amid evidence that many more soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are being diagnosed with psychological damage than those returning from previous conflicts.

The reason may be due to soldiers being more willing these days to come forward with their problems, but it is also due to the intensity and unpredictability of today's conflicts "In World War II, a soldier generally knew when fighting was going to happen on a given day and was prepared for it,'' said Dr Nigel Hunt, associate professor of health psychology at the University of Nottingham and an expert in PTSD.

"In Iraq, it's so unexpected Nothing may happen to a soldier for days or weeks, and then on an ordinary patrol, a bomb will go off That unpredictability can be very disturbing'', Combat Stress says soldiers as young as 21 are now coming to it for help as early as 11 months after being discharged from the army.

Before Iraq and Afghanistan, the average time it took people to come forward with problems was 13 years.

Reuters"