Drug, alcohol abuse rife at Australian Naval base: report
Xinhua, April 8, 2015 Adjust font size:
The use of the drug ice and binge drinking was commonplace at a major Australian Naval base, an investigation has found.
On Wednesday, there were calls for the Royal Australian Navy ( RAN) to change its privacy policy to inform families when their sailor sons or daughters were highly stressed.
That followed five suicides and one overdose in just two years by personnel at Western Australia's HMAS Stirling base.
An extensive investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has uncovered a pattern of ice and alcohol abuse at the base, with a former sailor claiming those who had died regularly used ice.
Some were also suicidal and on psychiatric medication and had attempted suicide before they succeeded
Despite doctors warning the RAN some of the sailors who committed suicide were not fit to go to sea, they were sent anyway.
When families confronted the RAN, they were stonewalled with the RAN saying it had to respect the sailor's privacy.
The wife of sailor Bradley Livingston, who died of a drug and alcohol overdose while on shore leave in Cambodia, went to the RAN before he died and told an officer her husband was an ice addict. Endi