TREAT VETS LIKE SERVING HEROES
Row over £6m private healthcare bill
DEFENCE chiefs spent more than £6million on private healthcare for serving troops – as veterans battled their demons alone.
Forces personnel with conditions such as PTSD, depression and addiction are being sent to costly units due to the national shortage of mental health beds.
Experts say it highlights a disparity between treatment given to serving troops and former personnel who get little help.
Col Richard Kemp, ex-commander of forces in Afghanistan, said: “There should not be a disparity between the type of treatment that serving soldiers receive and retired soldiers are given.”
Sunday People research found 2,630 troops have been given private, taxpayer- funded treatment since 2015. The Ministry of Defence bill was revealed under Freedom of Information laws. Our Save Our Soldiers campaign is demanding better support for trauma-stricken troops.
One Army doctor told the Sunday People: “The Armed Forces would never have had to spend millions treating soldiers in expensive private hospitals if the NHS wasn’t in crisis.”
Our research also discovered MOD bosses agreed to fork out for a series of private cosmetic procedures.
About £20,000 went on breast reducbritish WELCOME to King Jong-un’s museum of propaganda, filled with gifts from 188 countries including a bulletproof limousine from Soviet despot Stalin. Other artefacts include a gold sword from Libya’s Gaddafi – and a Wigan Warriors rugby shirt. The site in the Myohyang mountains was built in 1978 by grandfather Kim Il-sung and houses 115,000 pieces. We were encouraged to bow before waxworks of Il-sung and his son and heir, Kim Jong-il. Guide Han Jong-suk told the Sunday People: “The exhibition demonstrates how respected our great leaders are and how the supreme leader Kim Jong-un is admired as the greatest leader in the world.” tion surgery for women and virtually the same for similar operations on men.
Another went on £19,285 on tummy tucks, £9,000 was spent on fat removal through surgery and liposuction and £800 covered the cost of tattoo removal.
An MOD spokesman said: “Secondary healthcare for the Armed Forces is largely provided by the NHS. However, in the event that a local health service is not able to provide a medical procedure that is occupationally necessary, the case will be considered by the MOD.”