Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #11 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was illness.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #11 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was illness.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:05 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you so much, Chair.
Untreated mental health issues understandably have a really big impact on military families. We heard testimony at a previous meeting about the increasing challenges that military family resource centres face, given the spillover of mental health issues on families. The testimony was about the problems at CFB Esquimalt, especially for after-hours care. If someone's in a crisis at that time, they have the chaplain team and the military police.
Have the military family resource centres received any extra help? Have they been consulted? They are independent non-profits, but they get almost all of their money from DND. Can you offer a comment on that, please?
2:05 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
I can't comment or give you an answer specifically to that, because it's not within health services that we look at that. I will tell you that we work very closely together with the family resource centres. I've had an incredible career in the sense that my colleagues from social work and other disciplines have taught me something that med school didn't teach me: Disease doesn't affect just an individual; it affects a whole family. We take a whole-of-family approach within health services. We do a lot of couple counselling. We do research on conjoint therapy for PTSD. We have an absolute interest in that.
In terms of the publishing, the journals and the academics, we do look at the family impact as well. However, I can't answer your specific question about resources for MFRCs.
2:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Where could the committee follow up to get some of that specific information?
2:10 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
The MFRCs fall under morale and welfare. It's within the chief of military personnel, but I'll get back to you with the specific office. We're at meetings all the time, but they changed the name a little while ago. I think it's morale and welfare services.
2:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Okay, thank you so much.
Chair, that's it for me.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Colonel Jetly, does a suicidal CAF member have to call the hotline in person, or will the hotline respond if the spouse of a CAF member calls on behalf of the member in a crisis situation?
2:10 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
Do you mean the CFMAP, the Canadian Forces member assistance program?
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
I mean the hotline that if somebody is in extreme mental distress they are instructed to call.
2:10 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
I understand. We don't have a hotline in that sense. We have CFMAP, which is the Canadian Forces member assistance program, which isn't a suicide hotline. If a suicide hotline is called, the community suicide hotline, they'll follow their own procedures. There are some national ones, but there are different local ones.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
How do the CAF members under your direction facilitate the seamless transition of care when patients release from the military to civilian life?
2:10 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
There are many different procedures in place. One of the big divisions, of course, will be whether it's through Veterans Affairs. If people have an identified mental illness or mental injury that's attributable to military service, the really important thing we've changed over the years is making sure that they have their assured Veterans Affairs paperwork, their eligibility and veterans card, all of those things, in place prior to release. That's one of the most important things.
We also allow, and it's something we almost encourage, that if people know their intended place of release, we will make that handover to Veterans Affairs during the last six months. As one your colleagues earlier said in regard to how people tend to release, if you're in Borden, you might stay within the Barrie area.
In Ottawa, we have a Veterans Affairs OSI clinic and we have our own clinics. If we can find a clinician, we can help make that transition smoother, then, even while they're still in service seeing military family doctors and psychiatrists if they find a therapist within the Veterans Affairs system.
Closing the gap between that in the transition is certainly an important piece. The Canadian Armed Forces has just stood up a specific group, an organization responsible for transition. They would probably be able to answer the question better from a holistic or overall point of view.
From a health perspective, the transition group will essentially attempt to make sure that people have ongoing health care and are connected to family physicians. It often gets complicated, depending on where people elect to release from the military. They might move to a more remote community despite having health needs, so there are those challenges.
December 11th, 2020 / 2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
The danger zone when people don't have that care is between their arriving home needing that service and the care not already being in place, and that's when the deaths come.
Going back to that phone line, it's not a hotline. It's a member assistance line. Are they able to communicate with the spouses or close family members, whether the member is in service or on the way out? Will they act when a family member calls because the member is in crisis?
2:15 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
I can't answer that.
We don't run CFMAP. I can certainly look into it and try to get you an answer.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Would you, please?
I know there are a number of members on this committee who are interested in the answer to that specific question. Last week, we had Dr. Sareen as a witness, who was, I'm sure you're aware, a co-chair of the expert panel on mental health.
How many of the 11 recommendations have been fully implemented from that 2016 mental health report?
2:15 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
Of the 11, I can tell you the one that we didn't implement, the one that we looked at very carefully, was the Caring Contacts. We looked at it, and the science on it was sort of mixed, the additional setting of it.... So we didn't do that one.
In terms of the other one that's sort of in progress.... You could read them out to me, and I can speak to them, because you're asking me to remember 11.
The office, the individual person responsible for suicide, that hiring process is going on right now. We are, between us, sort of creating a function for tracking and implementation of new approaches and the research.
If you want to ask me about other specific ones, I can attempt to answer.
2:15 p.m.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
No.
Have there been any noticeable changes or trends in the mental health status of CAF members during this pandemic?
2:15 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
We don't have the literature on that right now. We sort of co-chaired a NATO meeting on September 17. We sort of grabbed observations from all of our allies, NATO plus Australia and New Zealand. It seemed like most of our countries saw a drop in use within the first couple of months and then sort of an increase in use.
I don't think we're going to have the exact numbers until later on when we look at things. You have counter-balancing forces going on in the Canadian Armed Forces in the sense that our members are fully employed. A lot of the determinants of health are there, but they are sort of suffering from the same pandemic kinds of things.
There are some stressors that are the same in civilian life and some stressors that are different. We may have some protective factors and some risk factors. We haven't seen an alarming increase in substance use or in family violence, although those are the kinds of things that we're seeing in the civilian world that we're certainly tracking.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I have to ask my question right away just in case you leave.
A number of your colleagues, and you yourself, have spoken about the involvement of loved ones—fathers, mothers, extended family—in easy-going terms. I have met a number of people grappling with these problems, and they have told me that becoming involved in the process is very different from what you are telling us. I could provide you with a number of examples of that kind of testimony.
I'm simply bridging the gap between those people and yourselves. What do they have to do, if members of an extended family try to contact people in your group and are told that it's not the way things work?
2:20 p.m.
Col Rakesh Jetly
I'm sorry, but I didn't really get the question because the translation was a little sketchy. Could somebody just summarize it for me? I'd appreciate that, if it was directed to me.
2:20 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Will you give me the time to explain? I'll do it in English, if you want.
I was talking about the implications for relatives, people who are their fathers, mothers, sisters or brothers who try to get involved to help the process and are refused. That's not exactly what I heard from you and other colleagues of yours.
