Thank you, Mr. President.
First of all, I was told that I had ten minutes, so I'm ready for ten minutes. I'll present it in French, if you don't mind.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would also like to thank the members of this committee for having allowed us to come and testify before you today.
I am sure that you will understand that I'm a little nervous being here, so I will try the best I can to explain our situation to you.
It is with great interest that we have been following the work of the committee and it is a privilege to be able to contribute to furthering a cause that has profoundly affected our respective lives, as well as the lives of our four children.
My husband, Sergeant Claude Rainville, retired from the Canadian Armed Forces in December 1998, at the age of 37, after 20 years of loyal services. As a traffic technician, he spent most of his career aboard a Hercules C-130. He participated in a large number of missions, including 17 months in Haiti and in Damascus. He also participated in the Gulf war, the Iran-Iraq war, the Rwanda mission, etc.
In July of this year, he received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder from the Ste. Anne's Centre. Since then, he has been undergoing intensive treatment and taking medication.
It was a real challenge for him to be here today. The past years have been difficult and demanding, but today, we finally understand why. I would also like to inform you that he is willing to answer your questions, but that he is still very vulnerable. It is for this reason that, if he should be unable to answer questions due to an emotional reaction, he would like to have me answer on his behalf, Mr. Chairman.
First, I would like to briefly explain why he was not diagnosed until nine years after having received an honourable discharge from the Canadian Armed Forces.
First, in 2005, a burnout forced him to stop working yet again. In despair, he sought to return to the Canadian Armed Forces.
Second, in February 2006, he learned that he had been refused due to a severe depression, diagnosed before he left the forces in 1998. Only then did we read the content of his military medical file and realize that a major error had been committed. When he was discharged, he was assigned the rating 4(a), indicating that he was in perfect health and that there were no restrictions on his returning to the Canadian Forces. However, the physician who examined him upon his discharge had indicated that he suffered from severe depression.
Therefore, in March 2007, on the recommendation of his brother, who is also a former serviceman, my spouse contacted Veterans Affairs Canada in order to obtain psychological assistance, because he no longer knew where to turn. I should mention that in the years following his discharge, he consulted a number of health professionals because he needed help returning to the civilian world and dealing with his many problems.
At the outset, I have no opinion to offer on the programs provided by Veterans Affairs Canada, because we are still awaiting answers. Far be it from me to criticize the current system, but I feel that the program access could, in some respects, be better adapted to the needs of the clients. Allow me to explain.
When my husband first contacted VAC, in March 2007, he clearly requested help, and this was a last resort. He was then asked about the nature of the physical and psychological problems he was experiencing. The pension officer's assistant explained that she would send him some forms and that all he had to do was fill them out and return them with the medical opinions required by mid-July. She also explained that he would be contacted in order to schedule a psychiatric assessment with the Ste. Anne's Centre.
Up until then, the process seemed relatively simple to me, but my spouse was convinced that Veterans Affairs Canada was in cahoots with the Canadian Armed Forces and that they would do everything in their power to harm him.
At the time, I would like to point out, we had begun a battle—and I do not use the word lightly—with the Canadian Armed Forces in order to have the error made in 1998 officially recognized and to change the grounds for the discharge that had been assigned at the time. I will spare you the details, but believe me, I could say a great deal to the national defence committee on this topic.
In short, my spouse was extremely wary with regard to Veterans Affairs Canada, due to his psychological state, but also because he was not familiar with this organization. Indeed, shortly after his first contact with VAC, we received a plethora of forms to fill out: applications for a disability pension, applications for rehabilitation, etc.
I can't remember how we were put into contact with a resource person from the OSISS, who scheduled a meeting with us to give us some tips on how to fill out the forms associated with my husband's physical and psychological problems, and to briefly inform us of what we would have to do next.
I have had experience managing a local grants program, and as part of this project I had to help communities fill out applications for provincial and federal grants. During the meeting, it was clear that the person was not acting on behalf of Veterans Affairs, and I quickly realized the amount of work in store for me.
I therefore filled out all the forms, one for each of my husband's problems. I spent hours asking my husband questions, searching through his military files and his photos and trying to get him to talk about his painful experiences. It was as painful for him as it was for me, and I felt powerless in the face of so much suffering. But the result appeared satisfactory, because my husband's pension officer told him that it was only the second time that he had seen such a complete file and that he would be able to send the files to Charlottetown for analysis without making any changes. With a few exceptions, each of the applications was between 10 and 20 pages long.
It is difficult for me to believe that Veterans Affairs leaves it up to the clients to fill out such forms, without providing any real support. I realize today that any assistance we receive depends on these very documents, along with the medical opinions. It is thus clear to me that there are inadequate services in this regard.
The pension officer's assistant did tell us that we could contact her as needed, but she probably would not have spent hours on the phone with us, asking my husband about the links between his current problems and his military service, or trying to evaluate the impact of these problems on his quality of life. She would probably not have taken the time to look at his photos along with him in order to tell him which one would best support his application.
Contacting the people responsible for the file is not easy either. Often, we cannot even leave a voicemail message. After asking us the reason for our call, the person who answers at the call centre in New Brunswick, or some place, tells us that she will leave a message for the person responsible and that we will be contacted later. Sometimes—and this is something that I have experienced—the message is given to the wrong person. Neither are we told if someone else is available to answer our questions. Nothing. When the client is already emotionally fragile, this does nothing to help him.
In September of this year, I tried to contact one Mr. Goyer, the boss of my husband's pension officer, in order to tell him about the situation. I explained to his secretary that the services were inadequate and I even went so far as to offer my services if ever a pilot project was developed. I knew full well that this would probably not make a difference, but at least I felt that I had done my civic duty.
A few weeks later, a coordinator, whose name I no longer recall, contacted me in order to convince me that the process was efficient. However, I maintain my position that it is not.
In any case, thanks to the psychiatric assessment required, my husband was taken on by the Ste. Anne's Centre and now receives services there. We can only commend the professionalism, dedication and efficiency of this extraordinary team. During his first consultations, my husband was so emotionally fragile that I am sincerely convinced that without the assistance given by the members of this team, he would not be with us here today.
There is still a long way to go, but already my husband is doing better.
The team at St. Anne's Centre has become a lifesaver, both from a psychological standpoint—of course—and from an administrative standpoint. That takes me to another point involving the clarification and coordination of roles played by all parties who work on cases.
Health care providers at St. Anne's Centre can see the seriousness of my spouse's condition. As well as they can, they try to work with Veterans Affairs Canada to accelerate the process of examining files and allocating financial aid, focusing particularly on the pension officer and advisor for the sector.
At present, services are poorly assigned and coordinated. Let me give you a tangible example. My spouse withdrew from professional activity on July 23rd of this year. I should point out that, even though he was officially working, for years I had been doing over 70% of his work in addition to my own. We had no other option, because his military pension and my salary were not enough to support our family. Thus, after he stopped work as ordered by St. Anne's Centre, the social worker who dealt with my spouse informed VAC officers of the fact, so that he could quickly receive benefits under the assistance program. In July, I myself sent an email to my spouse's pension officer to tell him that he had stopped working. Here is what the officer said to my spouse, and I quote:
“We won't let you down, Mr. Rainville.” Since then, no news.
Now, four months later, my spouse has exhausted his 15 weeks of employment insurance sickness benefits, and is not entitled to private-sector insurance because his mental health problems are not directly work-related, and he has had other periods during which he stopped working. To date, we still do not know what kind of assistance he could actually be entitled to.
Even though he cannot, he is still considering going back to work in January to help us make ends meet, not because he is able to work but because my salary alone is not enough to support the family. Fortunately, we are well organized—in October of last year, my spouse's sector advisor asked him to return a rehabilitation form that she was unable to find. We managed to send her the copy that we had digitized in April.
Yesterday, we learned that rehabilitation assistance was pending. Since my spouse has no pension number and since that service is also pending the psychiatric evaluation from St. Anne's Centre, a document that we had already sent to other VAC services, he himself had to contact his social worker to ensure that his examination and report could be faxed that very morning.
Would there be some way of assigning a file manager to a given client, a file manager who could receive, coordinate and route information that concerns and directly affects the client to all the departments and sectors that need them? Once again, that lack of coordination simply delays the process and increases my spouse's anxiety, as well as my own.
Lastly, I would like to point out that, since 2000, all the health care professionals my spouse has met outside the Forces—be it his family physician, two psychiatrists ans a psychologist, among others, have entered in his records, either as part of an official assessment or in his file, that he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome. However, nobody has referred or directed him to St. Anne's Centre, or at least informed him of its existence. If only one of those health care professionals had mentioned the hospital, these last few years would have been far better for our entire family. Is this because the hospital is not well enough known? I have no answer to that question.
I would like to say that living with someone who has post-traumatic stress syndrome has impacts and repercussions on all members of the family. Without blowing my own trumpet, however, I believe I have succeeded in minimizing the damage. I am 35 years old, and sometimes I feel 70. I would really have appreciated the help provided by St. Anne's Centre for Claude, for us all and for our children before this summer.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
