National Defence committee  Of course, as long as the mission lasts, and especially if future operations involve a lot of combat, we will continue to have casualties of this kind.

National Defence committee  Exactly. We get wounded members referred to us by their peers, by on-site medical personnel, by chaplains, and some come to us on their own.

National Defence committee  Do you mean psychological trauma?

National Defence committee  General Semianiw has described the structures that exist to follow and support them, whether it be socially, medically, in aftercare or anything else. We even have structures to provide long-term support for families. But we do not have enough data to determine how big a problem

National Defence committee  Some of the numbers, yes, are quite compatible. Some are different because of differences in the way we deploy troops. For example, in terms of the Americans in Iraq, recently one of their studies found that they had a significantly higher rate of symptomatology suggestive of P

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  We are continually re-evaluating, and, as long as it is possible, with rehabilitation treatment, for the person to resume military service in a way that the Canadian Forces deem acceptable, that person remains in the army.

National Defence committee  For those who are released from the armed forces, the responsibility for their military service-related care becomes the responsibility of Veterans Affairs Canada. We no longer have a legal mandate to carry on with providing them health care. We do everything we can to smoothly t

National Defence committee  I don't know what studies there have been, if any. I mentioned the directorate of medical policy, which has a deployment health section that does that kind of research. As far as I know, no.... One thing I can say is that some studies have been done on symptomatology three to si

National Defence committee  Normally, we are talking hours, or a few days at most. For acute problems, service is immediate, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

National Defence committee  All available resources are provided to maximize rehabilitation. It can take years, but we keep those people in the army. At a certain point, if we are sure that no further improvement is possible, we conduct an assessment to see if the person can continue to serve as a soldier.

National Defence committee  Currently, for example, because of IEDs, the greatest burden has been lower leg, pelvic, and head injuries.

National Defence committee  It depends on the phase of the operation and what rotation has occurred. It has been different with each one.

National Defence committee  There are other efforts under way that are much more expansive than that. They're all classified efforts because of the operational security, but there are many things that are probably going to be even more protective than that.

National Defence committee  We have not detected any problem with excessive prescription of drugs. All of our practices are evidence-based; whatever use of drugs occurs is based on good evidence. In particular, in our circumstance, there's a very selective use of drugs because of the potential side effect