Report links problems to P.O.W. experiences

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 16

Report links problems to P.O.W. experiences

NZPA London A report by London doctors is giving new hope to thousands of former prisoners of war with medical problems caused by wartime horrors but only coming to light 40 years on. They are suffering from “survivors’ syndrome,” the delayed effects of torture, brutality, malnutrition, and deprivation. Sometimes minds and bodies have ben “indelibly scarred,” says the British Medical Association’s journal, “News Review,” which alerts doctors to their plight. There are an estimated 120,000 surviving prisoners of war from World War II alone and many get no disability pension because of problems in proving the link

between the prison camps and their present disability.

The new encouragement comes in a report from Dr Donald Patrick, of the department of community medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, and Dr Peter Heaf, of University College Hospital. Their report on the “longterm effects of war-related deprivation on health” was commissioned by the British section of the World Veterans Federation, which has been fighting for justice for former prisoners of war.

Based on medical studies in Britain, Norway, Denmark, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the report suggests that the war camp victims have developed many more

diseases than other former servicemen. They include psychological, respiratory, heart and gastro-intestinal trouble, bone diseases, parasitic disorders and nutritional problems. The report recommends several improvements: the Department of Health should indicate former prisoner of war status on medical records; a special medical advisory committee should be set up to adopt a standard way to assess former prisoners of war, and former prisoners of war should have a right to periodic medical checks at special centres “with a view to preventing unnecessary suffering from the effects of war deprivation.”