Evidence of meeting #25 for National Defence in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was back.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Canadian Forces Surgeon General, Department of National Defence
I wouldn't hesitate to say at least that.
5:20 p.m.
Commander of Canadian Forces Health Services Group and Director General of Health Services, Department of National Defence
At least 80% disease and non-battle injury compared to battle injury. People still get flu, they still get colds, or sprain their ankle when playing floor hockey. They do those kinds of things, even in war zones, but that's disease and non-battle injury. Yes, we would have a lot more than the 171; that's natural and to be expected.
5:20 p.m.
Canadian Forces Surgeon General, Department of National Defence
As an example, the exact figures.... We've just received our first half of the statistics for the current rotation, and they had over 2,500 sick parade visits. Those would be the disease and non-battle injury kinds of visits, as compared to performing some 220 surgical procedures and, as we mentioned, 171 wounded in action. There's a lot of not all that sexy work taking place on a day-to-day basis at the clinic as well as the more public things.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
Thank you very much. We appreciate your being here.
Before we suspend and move in camera for our next witness, I want to explain to the committee that the next witness was scheduled for Wednesday, but something happened to his schedule and he wasn't able to make it. So we thought we'd add him to this evening. I apologize that we have to run for another hour, but that frees up Wednesday. There will not be a meeting on Wednesday.
Thank you both very much. It was very interesting, and we looked forward to your being here. I can tell by the questions that there was a lot of interest in this aspect. Certainly the welfare of our men and women in uniform, whether they're in Afghanistan or at home here, is of critical interest to us.
We thank you very much for your input.
We'll suspend for a few minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]