Thank you.
Ladies, I'd like to ask you a question. I know that for folks who have PTSD you're going to book a half-hour or an hour session with them, but the reality is they need four or five hours to explain their situation. I'd like you to explain how you deal with that when someone is in the middle of explaining something and you have to go. How do you deal with that in your occupation?
Before you respond, I'd like to ask Mr. Griffis a question. Sir, I have a book here that was written by Sandra Baker. She did a thesis on the experience of female partners of Canadian military veterans who are diagnosed with PTSD, and she did the Halifax example. This is the thesis she's writing for becoming a professor. She said:
In the Halifax trauma treatments, in order for the women or the spouses of veterans to get treatment, they have to be referred by a veterans psychologist in order to get the treatment.
They have to be referred. Although there is access to peer groups, there is not that direct access. I wonder if you have run into this. She gives example after example of women she spoke to. Here's a situation. Her husband came back from the service. He got a new psychologist. He is diagnosed with PTSD. He comes home and says, “I don't love you any more and I'm gone”. She said that was it. There were no other support programs for her. She was left on her own. In fact she said she was unable to access support from any agency.
Did you run into that in the studies you have done? What should we recommend to government with respect to not just focusing on the military individual going through problems? It's immense. We've always argued—and both sides have argued this—that the family is an integral part of that individual. What would you recommend to ensure that she and others don't fall through the cracks? It doesn't mention that she has kids, but if she had kids, I assume they would fall into the cracks as well.