Evidence of meeting #46 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was seniors.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
I would like to add one more thing. We also believe that we can act now to at least take some interim steps and not wait until we have this perfect screening process in place, and we can look after the 85-year-old veteran who is frail and who needs VIP.
Conservative
Bloc
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
Yes, sir, I am a member.
Bloc
Roger Gaudet Bloc Montcalm, QC
If I can read the following:
“Keeping the Promise” recommends that Veterans Affairs Canada combine its three existing health and social programs to create the Veterans Integrated Services.
Did you work on that as a member of the Gerontological Advisory Council?
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
That is the model we developed in our report, and we are continuing to work on this. We have more meetings to establish the process to be adopted for providing the services needed. To do that, we first determine whether the person needs a higher level of care, and we then designate a case manager to see that the client's needs are met.
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
Yes, it is included in the report.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.
Now we'll go on to Mrs. Hinton for five minutes.
Conservative
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Allard, thanks. It's interesting to see you in a different chair today. You've mentioned the PRISMA screening tool, and in fact I questioned Dr. Marshall on that specific thing. He was mentioning to me that there's still some work, and it's going through an evolution. We have the PRISMA that's in the report, but do you have a revised one that you can present to the committee?
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
It's still a work in progress through committees of the GAC. I think we are getting closer to a final product. I think we're getting closer to a fully developed process. But that fully developed process is remaining within what I have described as an integrated process of the initial screening, identifying people with high-care needs and then assigning them a case manager. How all that plays out we'll have to see when it comes to its ultimate conclusion. I'd like to add that there is also an essential health promotion element to these integrated services. If we look after promoting health from the get-go, then we can minimize the demands on an integrated service delivery program.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
For all three of the past witnesses we had, one of the most encouraging things to me was that this was part of the integrated services.
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
The difficulty will be that we keep hearing the term “evidence-based health promotion program”. It is very difficult to design and prove that you have an evidence-based health promotion program because what you see is the lack of success, if you want. It's difficult to gauge success and to have the evidence you need to prove that this health promotion program works. That will be a challenge, I suspect.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
I don't think it'll be that big of a challenge. I think if you get some people who are moving on in age and they get them moving and they develop some muscle mass and they're able to accomplish some things that they couldn't before, then hopefully it will be self-evident.
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
By the way, there are opportunities here for us at the Legion, because where we are in these more isolated localities, if there was a health promotion program, let's say, for not only veterans but for seniors, we could probably integrate that within our branches.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
If not, just some good dancing, I guess.
You mentioned some interim steps.
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
Yes.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Have you presented those to Veterans Affairs?
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
I think we keep saying, very consistently, that we have high-priority advocacy needs, and that is VIP for frailty and VIP for pre-1981 spouses. We also keep getting messages that the ongoing health benefits review will allow options to provide those services. Then we hear that the other analysis is because we have all these veterans out there and we don't have a good appreciation of what the total number is; we have to decide how we are going to approach this problem. As I pointed out a while ago, we need to take two steps. We need to convince Stats Canada to revise their census, but we also need to realize that not all those veterans will come forward with high needs.
Going back to my comparison that 12% of seniors are identified as having high needs, currently, it's 14% of Canadian Forces veterans. That's probably a good figure, 14% to 15%, because they have higher stress on their body. We should look at those figures and say, okay, let's take some interim measures right now, because those people--as I said, I won't apologize for it--are dying. They're 85 years old; they're coming to the end of life.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
You've mentioned that. I've got a couple more questions, but I need to dig on this one. You're saying from the Second World War, but was it also the Korean War, that no accurate records were kept of released soldiers and then married up with, sad to say, death certificates as we go? There's no accurate information?
Royal Canadian Legion Service Bureau Director, Gerontological Advisory Council
I would suggest there's no accurate information today for both World War II and Korea of who remains, which is why we need to be a little bit more scientific in our approach. It was only, I would say, about five or ten years ago that the Canadian Forces started to compile more scientific data on people who served and where they've gone. The difficulty is in tracking them, because people move and databases are not easily adjusted to reflect moves across the country, especially for reservists.
