Maybe for clarification, when you were talking about five centres across the country with wait times, you’re probably talking about the Canadian Forces operational trauma clinics.
At Veterans Affairs, we have nine outpatient clinics across the country. We have over 2,000 service providers. All Veterans Affairs veteran clients have access, if it is urgent, to any public service medical attention, emergency psychiatric services; they’re all available to veterans. They can go in. If there is an urgent need, they can go to any hospital or resource centre in their community to get help. As far as Veterans Affairs, they can be referred to private providers. In most of the country, we have very good coverage with the 2,000 service providers.
We have to remember that we have over 13,000 clients with mental conditions. Having 2,000 service providers registered with the department to provide services is a very large number. In our OSI clinics, once we receive a referral from the district office, we can see the clients based on need. Normally, our turnaround time for the initial visit is 15 working days, but if there is an emergency, the client can go to the public services. To come to the clinic, we say 15 days, but once we have a contact, we are in charge of the clients and we assess the level of need. Depending on the situation of the client, he could be seen in a week, he could be seen in a month. It depends. He is taken in charge by the clinic.