Stigma around PTSD still exists despite ‘shock’ around Ontario police officer’s death
Global News
Despite doors opening up over the last decade acknowledging the effects post-traumatic stress disorder, one a first responder says it still comes with a stigma attached to it.
In a five-part series titled First Responders in Crisis, Global News is looking at some of the issues that continue to loom around mental health and first responders. We’ll explore what’s being done to help first responders and what has changed over the decade.
December will mark 10 years since a well-regarded Hamilton Police investigator took his own life inside Central Station, putting a spotlight on first responders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the job.
Family and friends of the late Staff-Sgt. Ian Matthews expressed surprise in the days following the Dec. 17, 2023 episode, including const. Andrew Leng, who was a neighbour.
“He lived two doors down from me, and I watched his kids grow up with mine,” Leng recalled. “So I knew him as more than just a police officer, I knew him as a neighbor … as a person. When he took his life, yeah, it completely shocked me.”
Matthews, a 25 year veteran of the force, was characterized by one colleague as the “Wayne Gretzky of investigators” and later commemorated through a fundraiser called the “Blarney Run” raising money for the Suicide Prevention Community Council of Hamilton and to support the Homewood Research Institute in Guelph.
His death opened doors for his immediate family who used the episode to speak openly about his demons and reminded first responders they don’t stand alone in the stigma surrounding mental health.
Hamilton Police Chief Frank Bergen says Matthew’s death got the ball rolling on the services talking about stress disorders which at the time was largely “lacking in acknowledgment and support” for members ten years ago
“Even legislation shifted in 2016 when the government introduced presumptive PTSD,” Bergen explained. “Presumptive was enough to say that cumulative events and how members are dealing with call after call after call of response of how that can take its toll.”
