National Defence Committee on June 3rd, 2013

[Gregory Woolvett]

Absolutely, forewarned is forearmed, and if they had been sat down, or had somebody from OSISS primarily who had suffered an operational stress injury.... They could perhaps tell the people going that there are signs to look for that they should be aware of: if you see something like this, don't be afraid to go and talk to the...there's a psychiatrist over there all the time, or whatever; talk to your medical officer.

If they had that, they might not be so susceptible to it when they come back, or when they start to see their own symptoms. They're taught how to staunch bleeding, tie tourniquets, all that kind of stuff, but they're not given any tools to deal with the mental aspect of combat, or the terror, because often it was more terror than combat.

Jon told me, he said, “Dad, the first quarter of a mile you look at where you're putting your feet because you don't know what you're going to step on.” That was every day he went out.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Ms. Allison, would you agree with that, more or less, and would you have any recommendations?

I think my seven minutes are about up.

[Heather Allison]

I think every soldier would have their own journey, and some journeys would be blacker than others.

Yes, I totally agree that it's something that should be done during basic training. It should start then, at basic training. It shouldn't be just before they go. That's a little too late. It's something that should be incorporated into boot camp—that this is a part of being a soldier and this is what could happen.

The other thing is that I think there should be more out there for families, what to be aware of. It's sort of after the fact. I know that at the groups for parents that I attended through the MFRC, my one question, because I was then a seasoned mother of deployment, as I had been through one.... I brought up PTS—and we'll put the “D” on it—and I was told at the group by counsellors, “Oh no, we don't talk about that. We're not going to talk about that. We'll have that discussion a couple of weeks before your soldier comes home.”

Well, that's fine if your soldier is coming home to your house—it's still not fine, and you should be prepared—but with us parents of the regular force children...our children go to another base. We don't know until we get a call and we hear something over the phone. And trust me, you know when you hear over the phone that your soldier isn't well; you just know this.

But yes, I think it should start at boot camp, sir. I really do. I think it's something that's part of being a soldier, and I think it's something that should be taught early on.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

For the last of the seven minutes, Mr. McKay.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both of you for coming.

You did marvellously well, Ms. Allison, for somebody who's supposed to be nervous. You were very articulate. It was appreciated.

I particularly appreciate you bringing out the family part, that this just doesn't go away. In our family, we struggle with a child who has schizophrenia, and I understand completely, although not to the magnitude of both of you, that this just never leaves. It never goes away, so I understand.

I almost don't know where to begin, because we've had so many witnesses in here who've said that the services the Canadian military provides to its ill and injured are among the best in the world, and yet the story you're telling us is misdiagnosis, or late diagnosis, or treatment that doesn't parallel the diagnosis, etc. It doesn't seem to jive with a lot of the stuff we've been hearing, yet I'm perfectly prepared to believe that some of the witnesses who have come here have a sincere belief—and maybe they're right, I don't know—that the Canadian military cares deeply about its own people and that they are, quote, unquote, “doing their best”.

The parallel that both of you have seems to be improper diagnoses that seem to take more time than necessary. Is that a fair statement?

[Gregory Woolvett]

I would say so, yes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Tell me about that journey, as to how the military, in the case of your son, Mr. Woolvett, can so misdiagnose. PTS or PTSD is not unknown in literature and has been a pretty well-recognized diagnosis for at least 10 years, so I don't understand how it could get so wrong before it gets at least back on the proper diagnostic track.

[Gregory Woolvett]

My feeling is that it should. When he got back from Afghanistan, first of all, he had an 11-month-old baby. His wife, who's a medic, was sent to Gagetown on a training course. Basically, three weeks after getting back from Afghanistan, he was looking after an 11-month-old child. He was dealing with the very recent death of these two guys. So he started drinking and having the nightmares right away.

They hide it. They don't necessarily wear it on their sleeve. But even when he went to work, he'd get kind of the pat on the back. They'd see his glossy eyes and they'd smell a bit of day-old booze, and they'd say, “Hey, Johnny, you know, you can't come to work like that. You have to suck it up, you know.” It was probably four months after he got back that he went and sought some help from Warrior Support, and he and his wife went to get some counselling through OSISS, because they were having marital difficulties. He was waking up at night and all this kind of stuff.

The medical treatment they get might be fine, but you're talking about a different kind of affliction or injury. Every day I was there, I sat at sick parade. Every morning there were probably 30 or 40 people going to see a doctor. I'm not doubting that they're treated well for various ailments, whether it's jumping out of a plane or cutting themselves or whatever. What I'm saying is that when it comes to this specific injury—post-traumatic stress disorder—it's misdiagnosed and characterized as something different.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Was your experience parallel to that?

[Heather Allison]

Oh, yes.

The only thing I'd like to add to that is that when my daughter—and I can only speak about my daughter—started showing signs or symptoms, she saw the psychiatrist and was given medication. Now, in their wisdom, her unit and the base thought it was best to give her this medication for her night terrors and to send her home and tell her not to come to work.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Was this treatment before diagnosis?

[Heather Allison]

This was before diagnosis.

I thought since they had been dealing with PTSD on this base and they'd seen it.... They didn't just write down “diagnosed” on a piece of paper. They gave her drugs for it. If they gave her drugs for it, then I'd say they knew it was PTSD. They were sending her home all by herself, to an empty house, with prescribed medication, when she was in a very bad place and no one was looking after her. This was a fact. I found this out, and I called. I received a call from her and she was totally incoherent. I couldn't make her out. I couldn't get a hold of anybody on the base because I don't have their numbers. But I did hear along the way, in her 14 years, that if you want something done, you go to the padre. So I went kicking and screaming to the padre in St. John's, and, thank God, he got on the phone.

I talked to a superior of hers shortly after, because the padre in Borden had him call me. He assured me that they had their eye on her; they were watching her and they were taking care of it, which I thought was very strange because I got a call 20 minutes later and she was in the same place again. Obviously, nobody was watching her. She was overmedicated when I was talking to her. I'm a retired nurse; I know what overmedicated sounds like.

So whether or not the diagnosis was made before or after, the thing is, you don't send someone home alone with a handful of pills when they're in this state.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Do I have time for a second one?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have time for a very short one, and then you're out of time.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

The 58% disabled—what does that mean?

[Gregory Woolvett]

Of the $270,000 that's available as a disability award to soldiers, he's been capped at 58%. That's all he's going to get as a disability award. And they told him he was lucky; they'd never seen anybody get over 58% with PTSD.

To me, that's a characterization of injury/illness, visible/not visible. Basically I'm looking at a life destroyed, a career destroyed. He hasn't lost a limb, but he's lost his mind. What's a prosthetic mind? You can't find one. I don't know what a prosthetic mind would look like. Right now he doesn't have it.

Really, my opinion is that they're trying to stabilize him so that they can shift him over to VAC. Give him his 3(b) medical release, give him 75% for two years, and then he's off the books. If he commits suicide outside of the military, it doesn't fall on their books. And lots have committed suicide outside of the military: 22 have killed themselves in Petawawa in the last three years.

I'm not trying to be critical. I'm just saying that they don't know how to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. They know how to splint, they know prostheses, they know this, and they know that. But they don't know...and it shocks me. My grandfather came back from World War I and never worked again. He died an alcoholic at Westminster hospital in London. What did he have? He had shell shock.

You know, we've been fighting wars for a hundred years, but we can't figure out how to treat these guys. We can give them crutches. We can do this or that with a visible injury, but we don't know how....

That's why, I believe, the MOs fall back on addiction, why they say it's addiction: here are some more pills; take some Seroquel, Jon, 400 milligrams.

But that will knock you on your butt. That will take down a horse. When he takes them, he stays up three more hours.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm going to have to cut you off there. We are getting close to our time, and I want to get in two more questioners.

Mr. Strahl, five minutes, and then Mr. Larose.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To the witnesses, I guess when it comes down to it, no matter what occupation our children are in, we're going to stand up for them. You're before this committee because your kids chose a life in the military. But you'd be at any other committee if they'd chosen another path and were facing similar problems. I want to thank you for that.

Mr. Woolvett, is your son still an active member of the Canadian Forces?

[Gregory Woolvett]

Yes. He's been assigned to the JPSU, the joint personnel support unit.

I've been told that he's being transitioned out of the military. He's what they call a “complex case”, so there's no timeframe. He's not a six-month, he's not a nine-month; he could be two more years.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Right.

How long has he been with the JPSU?

[Gregory Woolvett]

He's been with the JPSU since, I believe, March of 2010.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

You mentioned that he returned home in August of 2007. I didn't catch the month he redeployed in 2008.

[Gregory Woolvett]

He redeployed on September 8, 2008.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

So it was just over a year later.

In that intervening year, what was his life like then? Was the military aware of PTSD or something like it—“addiction”, as they called it? Did he present as a normal soldier for that year, or were there indications even at that time?