Evidence of meeting #18 for National Defence in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries, Veterans Affairs Canada
If the client is entitled to the services, we will reimburse the costs. For example, in British Columbia we have two providers of comorbid programs on Vancouver Island. One is in Nanaimo and the other is in Victoria. So there are services.
In budget 2007, funding was approved to establish five new clinics across the country. We are looking for hospitals to partner with us to establish OSI clinics, so there will be more clinics out west.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
If I understand you correctly, it would be a cost-shared program, but the province would have to bill you or seek reimbursement from you before they received money for veterans. Am I correct?
Director, National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries, Veterans Affairs Canada
If we are talking about OSI clinics, we pay the full bill. If we are talking about services from private providers, the service provider bills Veterans Affairs directly.
NDP
Director, National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries, Veterans Affairs Canada
Yes.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
If a soldier returns from Afghanistan and is out of the military, they come under Veterans Affairs Canada, right?
Director, National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries, Veterans Affairs Canada
Yes.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
If they lived in Kelowna in the interior of British Columbia, would they have to go to Esquimalt or Nanaimo on Vancouver Island to access the services, or are you contracting out to mental health providers in that community? Are there problems for returning soldiers, who now come under Veterans Affairs, in accessing services in different regions of the country?
You've said you're going to commit to five new clinics across the country. Where are they going to be?
Director, National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries, Veterans Affairs Canada
There are 900 services providers that meet our standards and are registered with us to provide services across the country. So around Kelowna there will be providers of trauma therapy for our Veterans Affairs clients. That's not a problem.
The clinic locations have yet to be finalized. The Minister of Veterans Affairs will announce the locations as soon as he can in the near future.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
My next question concerns the chart in the kit you put out. It talks about numbers of clients. In Charlottetown you're treating 42 clients for post-traumatic stress disorder, and 89 clients for psychiatric conditions. Am I understanding the chart correctly that these are people who've been diagnosed and are now receiving services from Veterans Affairs Canada?
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
This chart breaks out the previous bar charts that describe how our clients are distributed. If you take a look at the chart on page 4, in 2006-07—and those numbers reflect until the end of March 2007, so they're almost a year old—10,250 clients had received favourable decisions for psychiatric conditions.
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
They have been diagnosed with a condition that's pensionable, under the regulations of Veterans Affairs, in a psychiatric or mental health condition.
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
The chart on page 6 breaks that down in terms of each of the areas of the country. The second column is all of the conditions, so it adds up to the 10,250, the same figure. The first column is the actual numbers of clients who have been diagnosed and assessed and have disability pensions for PTSD.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
And the cumulative total would be other psychiatric illnesses, including the PTSD?
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
That's correct. It would be things such as depression, anxiety disorders, social phobias, addictions—any of those other conditions.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
And are these all people who have left the military now, or are they people who are also in the military?
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
It's a combination of both.
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
They have grown.
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
If you look at the bar graph, you can see the dramatic increase over the period of 2001 to 2007.
NDP
Dawn Black NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
There's been anecdotal evidence given—or people have talked to me, and I know they have to other members of this committee or other members of Parliament—of people who are now out of the military and moving on to Veterans Affairs having difficulty moving from the umbrella of DND to the umbrella of Veterans Affairs.
What challenges would you talk about in that area? Am I correct? I'm hearing this from individuals. Are you looking at ways to meet those challenges when people are leaving the forces?
I guess my question is, is there room for improvement?
Director, Mental Health Policy Directorate, Veterans Affairs Canada
I can start, and my colleagues can add.
We would call this the transition from the military to civilian life. Yes, of course there are many challenges. There are challenges inherent in the very fact that you have people leaving a particular culture and lifestyle and going to something that is very different.
What we have tried to do on the mental health side is focus on that piece of time when the individual is still in the military but is about to be released. We have tried, and there's always room for more improvement, to engage our area counsellors, who are basically our case managers, at the bases so that information can be provided to the people who are leaving the military, particularly those who are being released for medical reasons.
There's also a link, then, with the department through this area counsellor even before they leave. We try to provide as much information as we can to them about the programs that are available. Very often the issues come later, but at least they've had a first pass at what the department is able to provide to them, and it eases the transition.
The goal is to be seamless, at the end of the day. We're not seamless yet, but that's what we aim for.