Good morning. I'm pleased to be here today to testify before your committee. I had the opportunity of meeting some of you during your visit to St. Anne's Hospital, last year in November.
Today, you'll have an opportunity to get a better understanding of what the department does when it comes to mental health and issues surrounding operational stress injuries. I won't rehash the presentation, because a number of points have to do with our role at St. Anne's Hospital. I would however like to talk a little about the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries, what we do, and the plans we have to improve our services.
In 2002, we announced the official opening of the trauma clinic at St. Anne's Hospital, where we have now begun to treat young members of the Forces suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The department then broadened St. Anne's Hospital's mandate, and that of the clinic, to make it a national centre responsible not only for providing services, but also for developing programs, promoting clinical practices for the treatment of mental health problems, for research and enhanced access to services nation-wide, including health care and treatment services for our clients. That gives you an idea of the broad mandate of the National Centre for Operational Stress Injuries.
In order to carry out this mandate, one of our roles is to enhance access to clinical care. So the clinics we developed and which will be set up following the budget announcement, will become part of a pan-Canadian network of clinics available to veterans, and members of the Canadian forces and of the RCMP. These clinics will work hand-in-hand with similar Canadian Forces' clinics called OSI centres. These are ultra specialized clinics that assess and treat people with complex mental health problems related to operational stress, including PTSD.
These clinics should be able to treat about 1,200 to 1,300 patients across Canada. Clinics will be set up in every region of Canada. The overall network may include up to 15 clinics. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently has five operational clinics, and the Department of National Defence also has five in military bases throughout Canada. So, we'd like to increase the total number of clinics with the addition of five more. These are ultra specialized clinics, meaning that they don't provide all the health care services our clients may need.
When our clients suffer from mental health problems, they have access, just like every Canadian, to the public health care service. They also have access to clinical services, therapeutic services provided by psychologists, and specialized community social workers. These are services that we pay for. With the network of clinics, they'll enjoy access to a network of specialists working in multidisciplinary teams, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and nurses. In addition to these health care professionals, the team may also include general practitioners, occupational therapists, and substance abuse counsellors. Our clinics rely therefore on a multidisciplinary team which works across the spectrum of disciplines. In other words, the whole team of professionals contributes to the assessment, treatment plan and care provided, based on the particular needs of the client.
These clinics specialize in assessment and treatment, but they're also mandated to work with community service providers, both public and private, in order to refer people to the appropriate professionals in the community—as I said earlier, not every client is treated in our clinics—broadening the knowledge-base of community health care workers, teaching best practices in the care of the people suffering from mental health disorders related to operational stress, and providing expert opinions to facilitate a collaborative approach with people in the community when it comes to treatment plans and the provision of services.
Our vision is to ensure that all our clients needing an initial assessment, or ongoing assessment due to the complexity of their problems or in absence of positive outcomes, have access to such. We offer clinical care at St. Anne's Hospital, but there's a whole array of complementary services provided by peer helpers. Bryson referred to these earlier.
The Operational Stress Injury Social Support Program, called OSISS in English, whose representatives you've met, I believe, provides services to people who have had mental health disorders and post-traumatic stress, and who offer support. We also provide the services of clinical care co-ordinators. These are people in the community who are available, and who are there to work more closely with the client in the community to ensure that there is no interruption in the services they receive. When a client suffering from an acute disorder out of hospital, after spending time in emergency and two or three weeks in a psychiatric wing, we want to ensure that there is some sort of follow-up to the health care that has already been provided. So these people are available to work with clients at Veterans Affairs' district offices, and also to work with the various community service providers, peer helpers, and with our specialized clinics to ensure these various levels of service are coordinated, that clients go to their appointments, that there is some sort of follow-up, sometimes daily, so that clients take their medication and know that the next step will be treatment in the community.
When you came to St. Anne's Hospital, one of the questions raised was about the beds we have for veterans. This question is often raised by the media, and you asked about it also when you came to visit. I'd like to point out that the beds we have at St. Anne's Hospital are not the only beds available to veterans suffering from operational stress. These beds are specially designed for a particular type of program, but we also have access to beds in private clinics throughout Canada. There are currently five clinics with programs developed at the request of Veterans Affairs Canada and the Canadian Forces. These are specialized programs lasting up to 60 days for people suffering from both post-traumatic stress and substance abuse problems,wich can be up to 75% of the total. We have a sufficient number of beds—there are beds in virtually every region of Canada, and these beds are available to veterans suffering from these disorders.
We also have access to some clinics' programs. In at least one specialized clinic, there's a program which provides an adequate number of beds. So, the beds at St. Anne's Hospital are beds designed for a specific stabilization program, and we're currently conducting a needs-based assessment to increase the total number of beds throughout Canada. We are still looking at this whole issue.
That completes my opening remarks. I would welcome any questions you may have.