That’s the picture the WA Police Union paints of WA’s medically-retired police officers, many of whom suffer post traumatic stress disorder from the horrors they have seen on the front line.
The union surveyed about 900 police officers in a two-year study into PTSD and stress in the police force, titled Project Recompense.
The report, released at the union’s annual conference this afternoon, says officers often felt “abandoned” by WA Police, and felt that there was little support either in or out of the police force for officers who were struggling.
It makes 14 recommendations including the establishment of a retrospective workers compensation scheme and a support office for former police officers, similar to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
It also calls for greater resilience training for police officers and an increase to WA Police’s 33-member health and welfare branch.
Other recommendations include
● An acknowledgment by WA Police of the trauma suffered by some police officers;
● Re-training for medically-retired police to help them find work; and
● Developing a suicide prevention strategy.
More than 300 police officers were medically retired in the past decade, and about 20 officers join those ranks each year.
The report does not hint at the cost of developing a workers compensation scheme, but even conservative estimates place it at several million dollars a year.
WA Police Union vice president Brandon Shortland said the cost would be “minimal” compared to the harm caused.
“It may be costly but I think dollars at the end of the day are less important than the trauma experienced by our members,” Mr Shortland said.
He said the estimated 300 medical retirements in the past decade were “just the tip of the iceberg” of the number of police who could be eligible for some sort of compensation.
Deputy WA Police Commissioner Stephen Brown acknowledged the department needed to do more to help injured police officers..
“The current lack of a workers compensation scheme for police in Western Australia in some cases is meaning that some police officers are hanging on, working hard for the community, because they simply don’t have any compensation at the end of their employment,” Mr Brown said.
“And that’s not acceptable for anybody, it has got to be fixed.”
The Medically Retired WA Police Officer’s Association said it strongly supports all 14 recommendations, and also calls for a formal, public apology from WA Police.
TRAUMA ON THE FRONT LINE
WATCHING a 13-year-old girl die in her arms while trying to comfort the girl’s 10-year-old brother is just one of the images that sticks with an experienced police officer.
She also recalls running down a hill to stomp out spot fires caused by the rolling body of a woman who had tipped petrol on herself, grinned at police and lit a match.
That police officer was one of 450 current and former police surveyed for WA Police Union’s Project Recompense report.
In another interview, a police officer describes trying to resuscitate a 14-year-old boy who fell into a grain bin and “drowned in wheat.”
“I can still taste the wheat as I type,” he said.
Most of the incidents are too horrific to describe.
They include murders, domestic assaults, road accidents, child sexual assault, telling families that their loved ones had died and, as one officer put it, “blood everywhere.”
A forensics officer, who says he has dealt with more than 50 deaths in the past few years, is quoted as saying WA Police top brass “don’t give a s**t” about the mental health impact of repeated exposure to trauma.
“It seems that you are treated like a robot, no one really cares about your state of mental health,” he said.
One former policewoman, who is now homeless and suicidal, says she is constantly bombarded by flashbacks.
“Just when I thought I had seen it all – BAM – another shocking job, worse abuse or worse injury, worse pain, worse, worse, worse,” she said.
PTSD has destroyed her life. Her marriage and family is gone. She wets herself if anyone yells at her.
A note written before one suicide attempt said her cause of death was WA Police.