MLA calls for improved mental health treatment

Mr Beattie, Assemblyman for Upper Bann, issued a statement on Monday highlighting what he said was a “gap” in support available to people with mental problems.

It comes in the wake of Mental Health Awareness Week, an awareness-raising campaign led by the Mental Health Foundation, which ran from last Monday to Sunday.

Mr Beattie, highlighting one case in particular, said he was “very disheartened to hear that a veteran – who has been living in a tent for the last two years with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – has been admitted to hospital having suffered a heart attack”.

He said among the symptoms exhibited by the man was “hyper-vigilance”, and that his wife and children have “worked through social services and the courts to allow him home to his family”.

“As we, as a society, focus on mental health issues within our communities it is important to realise you can take the term ‘veteran’ out of the equation – if that helps you show compassion – and you will still be left with a man suffering PTSD in desperate need of help.

“A family in desperate need of support and statutory agencies that clearly have a gap in their support mechanisms.

“[PTSD] can affect anyone from the emergency services, to someone who has been involved in a serious road accident or the victim of a violent personal assault such as a mugging.”