Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 11th, 2006

[Brian Ferguson]

No, you wouldn't be a client of DVA.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Very good. Would family members who make representation on behalf of their veterans, or deceased veterans, who are turned down? For example, a lady who is on...I'll use the gender here. A veteran receives VIP and he dies, and his spouse receives it. Is she considered a client of DVA?

[Brian Ferguson]

Yes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Okay. But if a woman applied for VIP whose husband did not receive it, and she's turned down, she's not considered a client?

[Brian Ferguson]

I'll answer it a little bit more completely.

They're considered clients in our database if they've passed through the process and are officially receiving support or benefits from us. If they aren't there, any time they come back to the department to get...we provide everybody with the basic support, even if they're not clients. In other words, we'll talk to them, we'll assess their needs, and if we have determined they're not clients and they can't get help from us, we will attempt to connect them with other agencies that may be able to help them. So in that sense we try to treat them as clients, even though they're not officially within the client list I've given you, which is the 230,000.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Very good. Thank you.

I was thinking of your statistic of 84%. I'm not sure if the people who are claiming for Agent Orange right now would be very happy. I don't think the people who have been applying for the interest benefits of the money from World War I would have been very happy. And I think a fair number of women who have applied for VIP but were told their husband didn't apply or didn't die in the legislative framework wouldn't be very happy.

But my other question is this. You asked about certain things that can be done to assist veterans, and I thank you for that opportunity. One of them is to ensure we have enough professionals trained in psychiatry in the country, because in Nova Scotia we simply don't have anywhere nearly enough, and a lot of people, especially reservists, are falling through the cracks.

We would also ask about another issue. If you could somehow change the SISIP regulations to stop that deductibility, it would be very helpful. And as you may know—this is more a Defence thing, if you can ask your colleagues in Defence—we're the only NATO country that charges its military for their own benefits, and if you could put a stop to that, that would be very helpful.

I have more, but the mood of the chairperson would cut me off.

I also want to give you a heads-up on one thing. Can your department work with the provinces on this one? I'm sure it doesn't happen just in Nova Scotia.

On Wednesday, there'll be a story by Global TV about a veteran who's at the veterans hospital in Halifax. His wife is now in failing health as well, and they were hoping to get her into the veterans hospital with him. Unfortunately, the rules and regulations just don't allow that. There simply isn't enough time. And I can appreciate that DVA has, because it's for veterans first. They were thinking maybe they can go to a provincial facility to get the same level of care. Unfortunately, the care he receives at DVA is not available elsewhere, so they're in a bit of a jam.

Working with the provinces, if there's anything you can do to ensure that in the later stages of life, a 91-year-old veteran and his 89-year-old wife can spend their last few days or weeks together, it will go a long way to alleviating public opinion that big bad government is dividing these people, which is simply not the case.

[Brian Ferguson]

Thank you for that comment.

We really feel very strongly, as you do, that we'd like to be able to help in that case and other cases like it. We make every effort we can to help and we will continue to work on it.

In terms of professionals trained in psychiatry, we agree there needs to be more work put into the development of capacity across the country in that. We've observed that. We are working with the Department of National Defence to create a list of trained professionals we can rely upon, as we implement the new Veterans Charter.

The final point is that I'd like to get some information back to you on how the survey was conducted, because I'm not certain we've excluded those types of people from the survey questionnaire.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

If you don't mind, that would be great.

[Brian Ferguson]

We'd like to get that back to you, because it was a professionally done survey using statistical sampling within the plus or minus 5% result.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

We can get a copy of the survey, maybe.

[Brian Ferguson]

Yes, we can get that for you, and also the approach that was taken with those types of clients.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I let Mr. Stoffer go for six minutes and nineteen seconds. See. I am accommodating.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

What a guy. I'm just not worthy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Sweet, you had some more questions to ask in the last round, so here you go again, for five minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

In your opening comments, Mr. Ferguson, you mentioned that there are 48 client service teams across the country. Are they located in every province?

[Brian Ferguson]

Yes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Could you tell me what personnel these teams consist of?

[Brian Ferguson]

Each team has a client service team manager who guides the team's activities. They have area counsellors who are there to interact with our client base as much as possible, face-to-face, in the area.

Generally they would serve somewhere over 4,000 clients. They have client service agents who support the area counsellors, and there is a division of work between area counsellors who are trained social workers and client service agents, so that they can work with the veterans and their families to do this case planning that we've talked about. And there are health professionals—doctors and nurses—who are part of the team as well, with some administrative support.

That is the composition of the team. It's a multi-disciplinary team, an interdisciplinary team of social workers, managers, administrative support, and medical professionals.

Have I missed anybody in that?

[Ken Miller]

The only ones I would mention in addition—and it's not part of the team at the district office, but it's a resource for the team—are our rehabilitation experts, of whom we have one at each of our regional offices. They act as a resource to assist that team with rehab cases.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

So at these 48 locations, you'd have 50 to 75 staff approximately?

[Brian Ferguson]

In each of those locations, we have an average of about 15 to 17 staff on each team.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

So for most of these professions, you're talking about one person who is on the team.

[Brian Ferguson]

There's usually one person to that type of assignment. But they have access, as Ken said, to centralized expertise in the region, for rehabilitation and mental health support. That's something we've built with the introduction of the new Veterans Charter.

Plus, there are networks of communication and advice that exist at head office that work very closely with the field staff. If anybody has a question about what to do in a certain circumstance, there is a hotline number within the department that they can call to get assistance right at the client service team level, to help them figure out what to do in an instance where they may have to get some advice and guidance.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mrs. Hinton questioned you about someone who has a physical injury. More and more, the challenge is that we have veterans who come out who are dealing with psychological issues. Oftentimes, they don't show right away. I'm certain that there has to be a number of those cases.

There is not a clear injury report. A person comes out and seems to be okay. They have optional courses, is that correct? They're not mandatory. These debriefing courses are optional for them when a veteran is released, particularly from a theatre where there is action, correct?