Veterans Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2008

[Darragh Mogan]

Yes. We can get you details on that, but the trend line is up. Of course, people of an average age of 85 tend to consume more health care than younger people. The CF veterans who are coming in--some of them haven't come out of the military from service in Afghanistan yet, but when they do, some of them are pretty seriously disabled, and that number will go up again.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I'll try to speak quickly because I'm going to get cut off.

I'm glad to hear we're all learning the best practices in the five countries you mentioned. I believe I heard you say, in answer to one of my colleagues' questions, that you feel we're ahead of the curve, or we're right up in the top group on how we're providing services to our veterans. I appreciate that, but I want to go back to what was mentioned by one other colleague about the remote sites, the rural areas.

My riding is in northern Ontario. I appreciate that he said “if” we could have a family doctor; we don't have family doctors in these areas. We're losing them as we speak. We're down to fewer than 25% of what we need for our community, let alone the challenges of a veteran who would move into that area, even the new veterans. We do have one, and I keep saying it around here and nobody ever listens, but I appreciate the huge problem that it is. In every community we already have an active organization that looks after veterans and is an anchor for many of them, and that is the Legion. No matter how we talk about it, we can't find a way to support them. They are the only institutions in these communities that have any ability to deal with some of the veterans.

I don't know the answer. I don't know who is going to have to think out of the box at some point to realize that to help our veterans and make sure there is some kind of anchor in a community, we must make sure the legions are still there. I don't know at what point we will think outside the box. We realize we can't support all service groups, but how do we make sure there is some recognition, some facility--not facility, that's not the correct word--something in a community that doesn't have doctors, that doesn't have many veterans?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's a long question, isn't it?

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

How do we make sure there's something there, some recognizable benefit to the veteran?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You can take as much time as you like. You're the witness.

[Darragh Mogan]

You've raised a very good point.

In terms of thinking outside of the box.... The Royal Canadian Legion has 1,600 branches across the country. They're not all located in big cities. They can be, as you say, the anchor, the cornerstone, for rural communities. Maybe something bold has to happen. It wouldn't be up to me to do it, but change some of the scope of practice rules so that a nurse or a nurse practitioner--someone like that--could visit a legion and handle a lot of things that a family physician would have handled had the family physician been there, and have access to Telehealth, to a centre that can help him or her out as a practitioner. Maybe that's a way. Maybe that's a recommendation that your committee can make.

Something needs to change in order to balance out the access to health services. With modern technology out there, and with so many trained health professionals, it may be possible to make some progress, and not just for veterans.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right.

Indulgence noted.

Mr. Perron from the Bloc Québécois, for five minutes.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Good day, gentlemen.

I would like to come back to the shortage of psychologists and psychiatrists, a problem alluded to by my colleague Mr. Gaudet. Here is something that often happens. A Canadian Forces member suffering from PTSD is treated by a psychologist while still an active CF member. After leaving the forces, this individual requests that his file be transferred to Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs does not recognize the psychologist who has been treating him and he is therefore back to square one.

This raises another question. When are you planning to simplify your forms? Young veterans generally complain that the forms are difficult to fill out.

Your famous 1-800 number also causes some problems. When a young person phones this number, months can go by before Veterans Affairs returns his call and then, he has to talk to another person. The 1-800 number is a complete mess.

[Darragh Mogan]

In terms of the question about the continuity of care from the psychologue and National Defence, we like to be in a position of never changing a supplier. So if it were possible to have the same psychologue who's in National Defence look after a veteran when that person leaves, that would be ideal. The problem becomes the size of the caseload for the psychologists in National Defence. That is why we have these OSI clinics, and we've now expanded them from--

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The psychologists are not DND employees. The department signs contracts with civilian psychologists. They are recognized by the Canadian Forces, but not by you.

[Darragh Mogan]

There's no reason, that I know of, why we wouldn't recognize that.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

It's happening.

[Darragh Mogan]

If there's a specific case where you know that's happened, if you can send that to me, it won't happen a second time. There's no reason. If that person is a registered supplier with the province and is providing care to an individual, on contract or whatever, we will recognize that. If it's a registered, in this case, psychologist--

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Call Dr. Descôteaux, the medical chief at the base in Valcartier.

[Darragh Mogan]

If there is a problem, I would like to get the name of the veteran involved in order to try and resolve the situation. Based on what you are telling me, there is no reason why he should be having a problem.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

What about the form?

[Darragh Mogan]

Le formulaire?

We're always open to suggestions for simplifying our forms if they're too complicated. There are a lot of things we have to satisfy, of course. One is financial and the other is eligibility. Because our eligibility rules, unfortunately, are very complex, it's not always easy to guess whether a person is eligible or not, unless we know all the details.

We're open to simplifying our forms and letters. If there are any suggestions, I don't think there'd be any problem at all.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

What about the 1-800 line?

[Darragh Mogan]

Yes, I've heard complaints about the 1-800 line. Frankly, we don't drop calls as a rule. We pick up 90% of the calls within 45 seconds. If there's any problem identified, it can be referred to a district office, and it often is. We have a proactive screening unit in Charlottetown that actually phones people. It doesn't wait for them to phone us. They're usually the ones who are high risk and highly vulnerable. We phone them to find out how they're doing, and if they're having a problem, it will be referred to the district office.

There are going to be times when you phone a 1-800 number when it's going to be extremely busy. I'm not sure what the solution to that problem is, other than continuous improvement. When we started out with the 1-800 number we had a high number of dropped calls. We now have 90% of the calls picked up within 30 or 35 seconds. I can check that out. In terms of call centres, that's almost the best there is.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Do I still have time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You have two seconds.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The problem with the 1-800 number is that when a veteran speaks to someone in Canada or elsewhere around the world, the department does not seem to make the connection. It is a slow process and the veterans has to call two or three times. For example, Gilles Gervais from Saint-Jean had to call 12 times and he waited a year and a half before someone called him back. This happens regularly. It would be far more practical to assign names in alphabetical order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Do you wish to respond to that?

[Darragh Mogan]

I would have to have some particulars to follow that up, because nobody should ever be phoning 12 times without an answer.

This is unacceptable.

I personally have phoned the 1-800 line. I've had staff phone it to check. It will depend on what time of the--