Finland’s new veterans

Mika Vuolle suffered severe depression in Afghanistan

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By Jarmo Huhtanen
     
      ”I am well aware that I went to Afghanistan a healthy man, and I was not a healthy man when I got back.
      Mika Vuolle, 42, a Finnish military crisis management veteran, is bitter about his lost years.
      “This feels extremely unfair.”
      Vuolle learned on Monday that the Supreme Court has refused to hear his appeal on a decision by the Insurance Court.
      According to the decision, he is not entitled to rehabilitation, treatment, and compensation for the severe depression that he got while in Afghanistan.
      “I was simply spat out of the system.”
     
The Finnish Officers’ Union and the Non-Commissioned Officers’ Union are angry that wounded and injured veterans returning from crisis management activities are left alone.
      The two organisations are demanding the establishment of a new national veterans’ policy for Finland. According to the unions, veterans are too often left alone to fight with bureaucracy.
      “If soldiers are sent there, then there needs to be some kind of responsibility”, says Harri Westerlund, chairman of the Officers’ Union.
     
Mika Vuolle came down with depression in Afghanistan in 2005. After a brief round of treatment at the Tilkka military hospital in Helsinki, he was sent home.
      “My fatigue was just awful. For a long time I was just at home sleeping. Nothing interested me.”
      He also lost his civilian job. Then he started drinking. Occasionally he got treatment at a psychiatric hospital.
     
Westerlund wonders why Finland lacks legislation that would apply to soldiers who return injured from military crisis management abroad.
      “There is nothing more than the principles linked with public health care. We should have laws about what the country’s liability is if we send them to conditions that have the hallmarks of war.”
      According to Westerlund, it is no longer possible to fall back on the public health care system. “The government needs to take up the issue and think about how to handle it.”
     
Three weeks ago Chief of Defence Ari Puheloinen invited soldiers who had been injured in Afghanistan to the Finnish Defence Staff to give feedback.
      Commander Pekka Varonen of the Defence Staff confirms that there is a “clear desire” for the establishment of a new Finnish veterans’ policy.
      “It is true that after their return, the soldiers experience challenges caused by bureaucracy, when they have to fill in all kinds of pieces of paper.”
     
Many other countries have established national veterans’ policies.
      For instance, in Denmark the government has an official definition of a veteran, and what kinds of support they are entitled to.
      In Finland the possibility of amending the military accident law is under consideration. Some results are expected within a couple of months.
     
It was only in 2007, with the help of relatives, that Vuolle got around to applying for support.
      “I didn’t get around to it myself, and nobody else did anything about it before.”
      He applied in vain for compensation from the State Treasury and the Insurance Court. After his rejection by the Supreme Court, he is planning an appeal to the European Court of Human rights.
      Vuolle says that his recovery took three years. He says that at times “the unfairness made me ridiculously angry”.
     
The basic problem for those returning from service in Afghanistan is that once they are back, they fall outside the services of the Defence Forces.
      “It’s bad to be left alone”, Mika Vuolle says.
      “No matter how competent the people are in health care, they have no idea of what is happening there, whether it’s a man who stepped on a mine, or someone whose head is starting to fall apart. Municipal health clinics don’t have that kind of knowledge.”
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.11.2011

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Tenth anniversary of Finnish involvement in Afghanistan approaching

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Afghan forces to take responsibility for zone now under Finnish supervision (28.10.2011)
  Grief becomes real for Finns in Afghanistan (17.2.2011)
  Fewer soldiers, more development cooperation for Afghanistan (22.11.2011)

JARMO HUHTANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jarmo.huhtanen@hs.fi