Ottawa needs to step in to prevent the shutdown of a hospital mental health counselling service used by hundreds of soldiers a year at the home base to which many troops return from Afghanistan, opposition critics say.

“This is another example where our veterans are being overlooked,” said Liberal veterans affairs critic Kirsty Duncan on Sunday. “There must be a plan to address their needs. If the hospital is unable to provide the services that they’ve come to depend on the federal government must find a solution or ensure alternatives are in place.”

Pembroke Regional Hospital says it can no longer afford the adult outpatient service that provided counselling for anger, stress, depression and relationship problems to more than 400 soldiers a year from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa.

Bernadette Wren, the hospital’s director of mental health services, said there were no dedicated funds for outpatient counselling. It was a service provided “sort of out of the goodness of the hospital’s heart,” she explained. “If we had more funding, I would happily continue to provide the service.”

This loss of a service for soldiers at the Pembroke hospital is the latest of the many trials facing some returning troops. A team of Star reporters recently spent three months talking with wounded soldiers in Germany and across Canada to prepare a special series of reports on their experiences. They found many of those injured physically and/or mentally in Afghanistan have had to continue to fight at home with bureaucrats and the military to get their needs met by a patchwork of federal programs.

NDP defence critic Jack Harris and Liberal Senator Colin Kenny said the federal government should pay for the hospital program itself if that’s what it takes to keep it running.

‘What needs to happen is the feds need to step up to it right away and make sure that there is no break in service,” Kenny said, “and then if they want to have a squabble with Queen’s Park later on, have at it.”

Even though hospital funding is a provincial responsibility, he noted, the soldiers in this situation suffered psychological injuries overseas and those injuries “are not that readily foreseeable by provinces” when they are deciding how to fund health care.

“The dumbest thing that could happen would be to have a federal-provincial argument and leave these people in the lurch until that’s resolved,” Kenny said.

‘I’m surprised to hear Ottawa is not working more closely with the Pembroke hospital to make sure the financial resources are there,” said Harris, noting CFB Petawawa is a large base that many soldiers come back to from Afghanistan. He said there appears to be an overall lack of resources and understanding on the part of the federal government when it comes to dealing with mental health issues facing returning troops.

‘I think it’s fair to say that we’re approaching a crisis really in terms of looking after returning soldiers,” Harris said, adding the situation is made particularly troubling by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent decision to keep Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan past the original 2011 withdrawal date to train that country’s local military. “The more rotations they do the more opportunity for and prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder-type reactions you’re going to get.”

The Canadian Forces “will have to look into” the situation at the Pembroke hospital and will likely respond Monday, said Department of National Defence spokesperson Jennifer Eckersley. “The CF take mental health very seriously and work to ensure appropriate health care resources are available to all members. We have several mental health professionals on staff at CFB Petawawa, in addition to staff in Ottawa that can augment as required.”

Among those the Star reported on in its series was Cpl. Steve Davidson, who struggled with psychological problems after a roadside bomb near Kandahar City killed two of his comrades and grievously injured another. He’s currently stationed at Petawawa and was not among those receiving counselling at the Pembroke hospital, but did receive care from a military psychiatrist and a civilian psychologist.

“I do think it’s extremely important for those kinds of programs to be in place, absolutely,” Davidson said Sunday. “When the vets come home, when they need help, they need to get it and that’s all there is to it.” He said he was helped “enormously” by the mental health counselling he received through the military. “It’s brought me back from where I was when I got back from tour to the man that I am today.”

A military survey two years ago suggested almost six per cent of 8,222 soldiers who’d recently returned from Afghanistan had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression.

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CFB Petawawa did not respond to requests for information.

With files from the Canadian Press

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