SUICIDE AMONG EX-SOLDIERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25800, 22 March 1945, Page 6

SUICIDE AMONG EX-SOLDIERS

SYDNEY DOCTOR’S RESEARCH (0.C.) SYDNEY, Mar 6. Research by Dr S. J. Minogue, medical superintendent of Rydalmere Mental Hospital, near Sydney, showed that Australian returned soldiers of the 1914-18 war were more prone to suicide than their fellow males in the same age group, states the "Medical Journal of Australia.” This could only mean that the war was directly responsible for their mental condition, the article added. Dr Minogue, who obtained his data from the coroners’ depositions in New South Wales from 1914 to 1937, said, that in that period, 410 ex-soldiers committed suicide in Sydney, and 200 at Newcastle, indicating that “ restless, unhappy soldiers crave for the excitement of the cities, where their loneliness is intensified, and their struggle for existence more acute.” Four per cent., who had lost limbs or an eye, felt themselves too handicapped to compete successfully with other men. Many complained of continual pain and drank heavily to alleviate it. In some cases the exaggeration of pain was but symptomatic of underlying neurosis. The article added: “Rigid observation of suicidal patients destroys the confidence of the patient in himself and in his medical attendants. But the winning of their confidence requires special training for doctors and nurses. It is not given by general hospital experience, nor is it encouraged by traditional military procedure. Unless these facts are grasped, suicides among the present Australian armies will be just as common after this war as they have been since the last.”

The president of the N.S.W. branch of the Returned Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmen’s League said that Dr Minogue’s analysis revealed the urgent need for rehabilitation to be approached with more realism and understanding than was the case after the last war.