Psychologist says Lionel Desmond’s post medical discharge therapy couldn’t really start.
Mathieu Murgatroyd was called on the seventh day of the Desmond Fatality Inquiry in Port Hawkesbury.
He treated Desmond at the Operational Stress Injury clinic in New Brunswick before the former solider returned to our province.
Murgatroyd told the Inquiry Desmond didn’t make progress like he had with his therapy before he left the Canadian Armed Forces.
“He was still kinda in that structured environment, he was still at work, he was still in the military,” he said. “I’m sure that was helpful, but now he is out.”
Murgatroyd said Desmond hadn’t wanted to leave the army and suffered without the structure, missing sessions, and not engaging in the ones he did attend.
He said Desmond never stabilized and the treatment never really began in earnest.
“Adding on to that the substance abuse which we were worried about, it was interfering with the treatment process,” he said. “It’s really difficult at that juncture to really tease apart what’s actually going on.”
Murgatroyd said Desmond told him he had head injuries which had never been properly assessed.
None of the members of Desmond’s pre-discharge treatment team testified the former infantryman had told them about any head injuries.
