National Defence Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

But they're not the people picked up six months later.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

—not the people picked up six months later, which is the second part to that piece.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Very good. Thank you.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Do you have any incentives to have people you have trained and paid a salary to through university and through med school stay in the service now that you really need them more than ever? The temptation is to leave after their five years of service or whatever is required. Is there any way to keep them? I imagine you're leaking people all the time.

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

Actually, in the last few years, we have done better than in the rest of my career. Our basic commitment, for somebody whom we sponsor through university to become a physician, is four years after they qualify. It used to be that at least 80% of those who came up to that point left.

I do not have the exact figures—I can get them from my staff—but it's now much lower than that. In fact, in this year coming up we are going to be in the position of telling people who want us to sponsor them through medical school that we have too many and are not going to offer them sponsorship. We may, in the next couple of years, come up against what we call “career gates”, a decision to offer people new contracts and not offer people extension of terms of service.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

The actual recruiting of physicians has been a best practice for the Canadian Forces, if you look at what they've done. They've done a number of things, both provincially and federally, to bring in more doctors. As General Jaeger said, in the last five years the increase has been great.

The incentive is called promotion. At the same time, people are provided both promotion within the military and obviously monetary remuneration.

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

And they like the work too.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Obviously, they like to be in on the action too.

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

They think it's valuable work.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

What clouds the issue, which hasn't been mentioned here, is serving the nation. This issue is coming up. I'm also responsible for recruiting. Recruiting is up across the country. Why? If you put your finger on it, in many cases it's that people want to serve this nation, given what this nation is doing right now around the world.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

When we were in Kandahar, the people at the hospital there seemed to be very highly motivated and competent, but they were on the verge of being rotated out. Do many of them volunteer to come back into that situation?

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

The military folks are on the same six-month rotation as most of the Canadian Forces are in that theatre. They will not be allowed or will not be encouraged to volunteer for at least a year after coming back. We try to space people out. In all probability, they won't be told they're going to go back—they won't be forced—for a couple of years.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Are they still helping to set up special units in Kandahar city in their spare time and that sort of thing?

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

The Afghan National Army has built a new hospital in what they call Camp Hero, which is just outside the gate of the main Kandahar airfield base, and we're doing a lot of work with them. We're also doing some work with the public health authorities in Kandahar city to help them with health prevention.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

When we were at the hospital a year ago, there was a gentleman, a patient, who had been basically put back together. He was an Afghan national who had been hurt, and they had done a pretty tremendous job on him.

We'll go over to Mr. Hawn and then back over to Mr. Bachand.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I have a couple of quick questions. I'll share some time with Mr. Blaney.

General Jaeger, you talked about staying within earshot of the guns and so on, and I appreciate that. Is it safe to say that, on a very basic level, soldiers are each other's best psychologists?

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

Yes, I think that's a fair assessment.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

It's a great question. What we have seen because of the awareness over the last number of years is that more soldiers are coming in to say, “Hey, my friend has trouble. I think you need to give him a hand.” We're seeing that more than we ever have, as well as families, wives saying, “My husband needs help.” So I think that has been an added effect of the education or the awareness.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

This is not pejorative in any way, but is it fair to say that we'll probably always be somewhat behind the requirement just because of the rapidly changing situation that the military finds itself in?

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

I'm not sure about the rapidly changing requirement. I think if you went back to 1944 with what we know today, you would be flooded with patients with PTSD.

This gives me a bit of an opportunity to point out that there's a difference between having a diagnosis of PTSD and being completely disabled by that diagnosis. We're going to have a fair number of people who will always have a diagnosis of PTSD, but if we do things right, they will not necessarily have a severe disability as a result.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

The figures are clear, and I think General Jaeger reminded me when we came in here, that for every 3,000 soldiers, we have one psychiatrist.

[BGen Hilary Jaeger]

At the moment.

[MGen Walter Semianiw]

At the moment. On the provincial side, it's one to 8,000. So we look at the capacity, but we agree, because it's not just a national issue, it's an international issue, finding mental health care providers, and we're doing everything we can. To be clear here, it's not just a money issue, giving people more money. That's not it. You just can't find these people to put them where you need to put them at times.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you. I'll give my time to Mr. Blaney.

I'm sorry, I have to leave and talk to Mr. Duffy.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you very much.

I will be brief. I have three or four questions for you. I will ask them all and then give you time to respond.

You said that about 5% of troops came back with post-traumatic stress syndrome after their first rotation. Do you have the percentages for the other psychological problems? That is my first question.

This is my second question. If post-traumatic stress syndrome is diagnosed, does the person always receive medication? If so, how long is that person on the medication?

This is my third question. I would like to know what you think about the support provided to families of military personnel who suffer from PTSD.