The Army has fewer than half of the psychiatrists it needs to cope with what military charities described yesterday as a "tsunami-level bow wave" of psychiatric casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Figures obtained by The Herald also show that the Ministry of Defence has reduced the manning requirement for psychiatrists from 25 in 2001 at the start of the "war on terror" to 15 last year as veterans reporting signs of anxiety and depression rose to more than 21,000.
Even with a reduced level, only six full-time psychiatrists were operational in 2006 and only 43 of the 53 mental health nurses needed had been recruited by the start of this year, according to the Army's own manning records.
It also emerged yesterday that soldiers - many of them injured in combat in the past five years - were being forced to wait up to 18 months for treatment on NHS lists while the MoD pressed ahead with plans to close the UK's last military hospital at Haslar, Gosport, at the end of the month. The MoD admits that 2123 troops have been treated for various mental health conditions related to their service since 2003, including 320 for full post-traumatic stress disorder.
Combat Stress, a military mental welfare charity, the Royal British Legion and the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association all claim that at least 10 times that number are seeking help for various psychological traumas.
Colonel Clive Fairweather, a former deputy commander of the SAS and fundraiser for Combat Stress in Scotland, said: "We have 160 Iraq veterans on our books already and calls from others seeking help daily. Many are still serving soldiers.
"We are seeing the bow-wave of potentially tsunami-level onset of psychiatric problems from the war on terror.
"All warfare comes with a mental health price-tag. Where the enemy is indistinguishable from the civilian population and where soldiers witness the horrific aftermath of car and suicide bombs is particularly harrowing."
According to Larry Cammock, chairman of the Gulf Veterans' Association, many servicemen - including 196 from the 1991 Gulf War - have committed suicide because they had not received the specialist help they needed.
Depression Alliance Scotland says the NHS is overwhelmed by psychiatric cases, many of them military, and that desperate patients were turning to charities for help while GPs prescribed anti-depressants in the absence of adequate specialist facilities.
The MoD meanwhile confirmed that another 10 soldiers from the Royal Scots Borderers had been disciplined after positive drug tests.
Their sacking follows eight weeks after 16 other soldiers from the same battalion were found to have been using banned drugs.
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