Picture: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach
Soldiers arriving home from the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will need to be evaluated as a matter of urgency.
Their physical condition may not have been fully confirmed yet, but there is a race to examine the extent of the psychological damage caused.
The ceremony to bid farewell to their deceased colleagues has gone, with the time and urgency it took to get the injured home drawing the ire of some.
The critically wounded arrived yesterday morning at Air Force Base Waterkloof in Centurion. They were sent for urgent medical attention.
The SA National Defence Force (SANDF) said an unconfirmed number of wounded and hurt of soldiers were set to follow this week.
For those arriving home, SANDF spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini said, “Every medical support possible, including spiritual and psychological, is available”.
Chris Hattingh, DA spokesperson on defence and military veterans, said roughly 130 soldiers returned home, one an amputee and another with shrapnel lodged in his eye.
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Hattingh questioned why the injured took a month to get back, saying it showed a lack of care and compassion on the part of the leaders.
“The critically injured should have been a priority. How can it be that a soldier spends 31 days without specialist medical treatment,” Hattingh told The Citizen.
The DA MP was not impressed by what he considered a politically expedient decision that allowed for a public display of hollow solitude.
“With respect to the wounded and their families, we won’t see a red carpet. You won’t see a parade because it does not present an opportunity to make speeches,” said Hattingh.
Getting the soldiers out of an intense conflict zone was no easy feat, which eventually required the negotiated passage that helped get the soldiers to find their way back to South Africa.
A retired colonel, who asked to remain anonymous, said fighting one’s way out of such a situation would amount to operational and tactical “art”.
The colonel said the vast distances and bad roads in central Africa forced the use of helicopters and that units would need to get close enough to the evacuation area while protecting the various aircraft from enemy fire.
Medics would have been a standard component of all units, which would have also featured psychologists and chaplains.
Dr Piet Bester, an industrial psychologist and lecturer at Stellenbosch University, spent 37 years in the defence and almost 10 working with the SANDF’s Military Psychological Institute.
He said soldiers would be subject to a standard debrief but that, in this instance, they had been subject to life-threatening trauma.
Following triage to evaluate the severity of their injuries, the soldiers would be assessed for psychological trauma in groups and as individuals.
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Bester, a former colonel, likened the initial psychological evaluations to cleaning a wound, saying post-traumatic stress presented itself in a patient after 30 days.
“After four days, those that don’t deal well with the situation experience what is referred to as Acute Stress Disorder, of which the symptoms are similar to Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and it can last anything between two days up to four weeks after the incident,” Bester told The Citizen.
Even though some of the wounded have been in their condition for more than 30 days, they would still be experiencing combat stress until fully removed from the traumatic arena.
Bester believed the SANDF was still committed to the care and well-being of soldiers and was confident that standards had been maintained as the protocols established many years ago had remained constant.
However, problems do develop, and Bester suggested monitoring behaviours in the following weeks.
“I would alert their commanders and family to be on the lookout for anger outbursts, increase alcohol use, startling responses and sleeplessness, agitation and inappropriate emotional responses. You might also see ‘survivor guilt’ and sleeplessness to name a few,” the doctor explained.
“If the signs and symptoms are still present after four weeks we are dealing with Acute PTSD. It is only when the symptoms last for more than a month and it must significantly influence important areas of the affected soldier’s family and work, to name a few,” he added.
“If the signs and symptoms are still present after three months, we are dealing with Chronic PTSD. If it does not resolve within the next year, the affected soldier’s family might request compensation. Compensation will depend on a thorough evaluation by a psychiatrist.”
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