North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood yesterday paid tribute in the Assembly Chamber to a former Army Doctor and Falklands hero who was instrumental in helping Veterans in North Wales suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Responding to yesterday’s Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services: ‘Remembering our Armed Forces and Delivering for Our Armed Forces Community’, Mr Isherwood remembered Dr Steven Hughes, who died earlier this year.
Dr Hughes was one of two clinicians who set up Pathways Residential Treatment Centre in Gwynedd, a charity treating ex-servicemen for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The centre was set up with personal monies, in the hope that it would secure public funding to put it on a sustainable footing in the longer-term. The Welsh Government at the time claimed that treatment was already available on the NHS and that it could not therefore provide funding, and the Centre subsequently closed.
Mr Isherwood had worked with Dr Hughes to highlight the need for a residential centre in Wales to treat and support ex-service personnel with service-related mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Speaking in the Chamber, Mr Isherwood said:
“We must never forget the sacrifices made in both the Great War 1914-18 and the conflicts that followed. You referred to the Falklands, and you mentioned Bluff Cove. Can I pay tribute, and will you join me in paying tribute to Dr Steven Hughes, who was the Regimental Medical Officer with 2 Para during the Falklands?
“It was he who waded out into the cold waters in Bluff Cove with a group of volunteers to save so many lives on that horrible, horrible day. Sadly, he died in May of this year. He himself had been diagnosed with military PTSD some 12 years after the conflict, and I had the pleasure and privilege of working with him during the unfortunately unsuccessful campaign to prove the need for residential respite and rehabilitative provision for veterans with complex military mental health issues and other related problems in Wales.
“I know last year I questioned you again about Welsh Government's current position on reviewing that need for residential provision. I wonder if you could update us on what work might have followed since then, at the very least in memory of Dr Steven Hughes, who was a medic and a military man who understood at first hand how desperately deep that need was in Wales and beyond.”
In his response, Mr Isherwood also challenged the Cabinet Secretary over funding for Veterans' NHS Wales and the pupil premium for children of service personnel in Wales.