Thanks very much.
I thank particularly Ms. Smith for really painting a picture of what this is like, and how really helpless you feel when somebody's designated fit to serve and you know that's not true.
I would like to explore how we can do a much better job in terms of wraparound care, first by identifying people at risk and then by providing some sort of continuous support. I don't think somebody who's there three days per week--and if you see a different person each time--is the way we sort this out. In most jobs people have to say “I'm okay, Jack” and get on with it. As a family doctor, you know when somebody is not himself or herself. You actually do need somebody with a continuity of care.
Maybe we should also be exploring how even in Nunavut people are able to do mental health visits electronically. To be able to see the same person each time, even with Skype, would be using the technology that we used in other parts of the services for this most important thing, our health human resources.
Even though, Ms. Smith, you had difficulty in terms of the clinical psychologist, I have to say that after the problem with Colonel Williams at Trenton a great number of my friends commented that we don't as yet have clinical psychologists in uniform in the military. Although you have operational psychologists, without clinical psychologists, who use the kinds of tools Ms. Smith described that we use for broken bones.... There are tools you can use to find out these things. I guess we're the only force without clinical psychologists but we also seem to be unlike the U.S. Air Force. We don't seem to do a pre-psychological assessment of our pilots.
I want to know how we can help. Another piece for which a number of us have been fighting for a very long time is that people are moved all over the country, particularly in the armed forces, and the soldiers receive care but their families do not. In my experience as a family doctor, if I'm not having the wife or the kids tattle on whoever's having trouble, I might not know what's going on.
What would it take, Dr. Jung, for us to be able to provide services of the highest possible quality for the military and their families?