Ombud report on officer PTSD an indictment of OPP

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Ombud report on officer PTSD an indictment of OPP

Postby Thomas » Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:57 am

Ombud report on officer PTSD an indictment of OPP

TORONTO - Do not think for a moment that Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin’s blistering and epic-sized report Wednesday on the mismanagement of post-traumatic stress disorder in our provincial police force will not reverberate across the country.

It will, and it will because it must.

Like high blood pressure, PTSD has often been called the silent killer.

But it’s not. It’s internally loud and fright filled, and no police force in Canada can yet dare to raise its hand and say it has it under control.

PTSD, as I have long documented, boils over with anger. It screams of sweat-drenched nightmares. It destroys marriages, promotes alcoholism and drug addictions, and it is relentless in its pursuit of a police officer’s body and soul.

And, as a result of PTSD being ignored, stigmatized, looked upon as ‘suspicious’ and therefore untreated, suicide is the escape too often taken.

Since 1989, for example, 23 active and retired OPP officers have purportedly committed suicide, two more than were killed in the line of duty.

Late Tuesday night, Marin’s office tweeted this: “This is part of @MarkBonokoski’s story that started the ball rolling on #OPP #OSI. Tomorrow is report time.”

And then Marin gave a link to a column that told, in part, the story of retired OPP Insp. Bruce Kruger, fresh out of the Homewood Treatment Centre, and his well-documented abandonment by the OPP in helping him deal with the PTSD that had taken over his life.

In the 18 months since that column was published, just for perspective, another five OPP officers have taken their own lives.

Bruce Kruger became Complainant No. 1 when Marin’s office began being inundated with similar stories and, as a result, the 155-page report tabled Wednesday — entitled In the Line of Duty — is the “most extensive (investigation) ever taken” by the ombudsman’s response team.

And it justifiably lays waste to the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, and the OPP, for dodging the crisis that is taking such a tragic toll on the sanity of its rank and file.

According to Marin, “there are no statistics kept or formal acknowledgement of OPP suicides, no prevention program and no analysis of why they occurred.”

This is not just an observation by Marin, it’s an indictment.

The aforementioned 23 suicides, in fact, is only a good guess, because it comes from ad hoc data kept by a now-retired psychologist with the OPP, and not from the OPP’s head office in Orillia.

What is particularly disturbing is that Marin gave both the ministry and the OPP an advanced copy of his report, and got no serious response.

He got, instead, what he called a “deeply-disturbed bureaucratic brushoff” with no specific commitment to implement any of his 34 recommendations to corral and treat PTSD in the force.

“The OPP had five weeks to review my recommendations,” said Marin. “(But) the commissioner (Chris Lewis) responded with little more than platitudes about caring for OPP members.”

Again, not just an observation, but an indictment.

Marin has never been one to pull punches but, then again, he has the experience of writing a similar report on PTSD in the Canadian military during the Afghanistan conflict, and getting similar initial responses, when he was the armed forces ombudsman in 2002.

“But, 10 years later, the culture of denial is gone (in the military),” said Marin. “If the military culture can evolve, I am optimistic that police culture can too.

“But we certainly cannot afford to wait another 10 years.”

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/10/24/om ... ent-of-opp

http://www.thestar.com/topic/ptsd

http://www.ombudsman.on.ca/Ombudsman/fi ... 742f1b.pdf
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