In the months leading up to David Finney’s suicide, the former Australian Navy sailor had been desperately seeking help.

He had tried to book in an appointment with a psychiatrist, only to be told that there were none in the ACT taking on new clients through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA).

The closest available appointment in NSW was three months away, in January of this year.

The doting 38-year-old father and decorated veteran would die weeks later on February 1, after losing a decade-long battle with post-traumatic stress.

Now, his grieving mother Julie-Ann Finney says she is determined to speak out about her son’s devastating story to show why a Royal Commission into veteran suicides is so desperately needed.

“David loved his Navy career, he was a Navy man through and through and they made him. They absolutely made him but then they broke him, and then they discarded him,” Mrs Finney told nine.com.au.

“As a mother I will not let my son’s story end on the first of February. I will not.

“I will not stop until there is a Royal Commission. I will not allow Australia to keep on treating its veterans the way we treat them.”

An online petition being run by Mrs Finney calling for a Royal Commission has so far gathered more than 115,000 signatures.

David Finney pictured with his mother Julie-Ann in 1998 when he was at recruit school. (Supplied)

‘THESE MEDALS AREN’T FREE’

Finney joined the Navy when he was just 18 and would go on to spend 20 years serving his country before he was medically discharged following a suicide attempt.

The former Adelaide schoolboy earned many medals for his service, including one for his quick thinking in putting out a potentially disastrous fire onboard HMAS Tobruk.

But the veteran, who wrote prolifically and candidly about his mental health battles in a blog, said the medals “weren’t free” and came at the terrible price of leaving behind his young family to serve overseas.

Compassionate, tenacious but also a hilarious larrikin, Finney had many friends, his mother said. (Supplied)

In Finney’s blog, he wrote of the trauma of losing his baby son Kayne to sudden infant death syndrome as he held him in his arms and tried to save him with CPR. He and his wife would later have a daughter before their marriage fell apart.

“I look at them (the medals) as a sacrifice I made to my life, leaving my daughter at home with a young wife as I sailed over the horizon. Holding a machine gun one day then a newborn the next, the constant internal conflict that tells me to be a family man, but also ready to sail to the other side of the world at a moments notice,” Finney wrote.

Finney spent years travelling to war zones before becoming involved with the harrowing mission of picking up refugees with Border Control.

Here he was rescuing children whose parents had been shot dead and pulling the drowned bodies of refugees from the water. The work affected him deeply as he realised he was powerless to help the people desperately fleeing their war-ravaged homes, Mrs Finney said.

In one of his blog posts, Finney described the nightmares he would get as the post-traumatic stress took hold.

“I started having nightmares again, about getting my head stomped on, being in a fire, losing Kayne, picking up dying refugees, being pinned next to an over speeding engine fearing for my life, being in that room in Timor full of bullet holes, barbed wire and blood, dreaming of being on that base in Bougainville surrounded by armed guerrillas, dreaming of being on that wharf in Dili while the city burned,” he wrote.

“A couple of the dreams were so intense and a combination of multiple things, I’d dream I revived Kayne and he was alive, or I was in a burning room with refugees. Some were so real I would wake up shaking, screaming, in a bed full of sweat or worse.”

In his last years Finney tried desperately to get well. "He tried everything, whatever somebody told him would help him he would try it. But it was all up to him to find it," Mrs Finney said. (Supplied)

In the lead-up to his first suicide attempt, Mrs Finney said her son’s employers, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) failed in their duty of care towards him and did not provide the support he needed.

“He had been trying to get help for eight weeks and he felt that nobody cared, nobody understood and nobody would listen. So he saw it as his only way out because he couldn’t get help,” she said.

The ADF acknowledged at the time of Finney’s discharge that his experiences in the Navy contributed to his post-traumatic stress, but then washed their hands of him, she said.

Finney was given a ‘Health White Card’ through the DVA, but then “left to seek his own psychiatric help,” Mrs Finney said.

Finney as a child with his big sister Jaimi. (Supplied)

Mrs Finney’s call for change comes after an inquest was held last week into the suicide of veteran soldier Jesse Bird.

Bird, who served in Afghanistan, had $5.20 left in his bank account the final time he pleaded with DVA staff for financial help.

The inquest heard from the veteran’s mother Karen Bird, who told the Victorian coroner’s court of a recent spate of suicides.

“I’ve been contacted by the veterans community,” she told the court.

“Three confirmed suicides since Anzac Day — I’m told there’s five.’

Mrs Finney, who attended the inquest, said it was distressing to hear that there had been five reported veteran suicides over the Anzac period.

“It’s a tragedy and Australia should be ashamed. We put these men and women out there and then we have no care,” she said.

“I’m just one mum with one story, I think that every one of these veterans have been failed. We will never know how many of them could have been saved, but I honestly believe that my son could have been saved.”

Readers seeking assistance can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 or MensLine Australia on 1300 78 99 78.