Evidence of meeting #14 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
We report it in our annual report. We are going to be doing another one in about six or eight weeks' time, which will report our 2015 survey and some of the general themes as well.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Will that include statistics, as well as some of that written commentary?
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
From your perspective, can any of the feedback you are getting after the review—and this goes to Mrs. Romanado's point as well—go back further into the actual review process, so we can avoid more cases coming to the board? Is there a mechanism to get the information further back in the process?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I don't know what the Department of Veterans Affairs is doing with respect to their surveying or their review of applicants. When a decision is overturned, we do ask members to categorize why. We communicate that information to the department on a regular basis. Right now, the department is granting benefits in about 85% of the applications that are made, so we are looking at about 15% as the eligible portion that can come to the board. We see about half of that, I think, coming to the board on a regular basis.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Oh, good.
Just going back a little, I am a bit surprised about your comments on how people were pleased with the opportunity to tell their story. Some of the feedback we have heard from veterans at committee is that they are very frustrated that they have to tell their story over and over and over again, especially those who are suffering from PTSD. What is the reasoning on that? Why are they happy to be telling their story now, at this point in the whole process? It seems a little contrary to some of the other testimony we have received.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I think the difference between the stage that I am talking about and previous one is that they are actually sitting in a room with a human being across the table from them, looking them in the face and talking to them, as opposed to doing it on the phone or writing out a statement or sending in an email. The other thing is that—I think I will also go back—there has been a distinct evolution. I don't recognize the board that people talk about from 2004 or 2005 as being the board that I am part of. Around 2012, I think, the organization underwent some fairly dramatic changes and improvements in processes, as a result of comments by this committee and by the veterans ombudsman. I think it is a different organization, so part of me wonders to what degree some of those comments are being driven by experiences that largely predate the 2011-12 reforms.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
I think that is all very good information for the service review, especially the aspect of the personal touch. We are talking about ways we can improve the whole process, and it has come out time and time again that personal touch is important.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I am going to ask a couple of questions and try to get a little better understanding of your review process and the people who make up this board.
Can you tell us what percentage of reviews would be medical—musculoskeletal, physical medicine, or psychiatric? Can you tell us what percentages you might see?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I guess I can operate by exclusion. PTSD is our sixth case. It is about 8% of our work. Major depressive disorder is our seventh level of case, and it is probably about 5% or 6% of the work. I would say that in excess of 80% of the cases we deal with are some form of physical ailment, and I count hearing loss as being a physical ailment—tinnitus, sleep apnea, the osteoarthritic claims, those sorts of things.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Correct me if I'm wrong. You said that when someone gets reviewed.... For example, earlier you mentioned someone who initially made an application where you assessed 20% of an injury, and they think it should be at 30%, so they come back to you and present to you. My understanding is that there would be two people who would review that process, correct?
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
You've mentioned that of the people you've put in that process, 13 of your members have military, police, or health care service. If someone's coming in with tinnitus or with a physical medicine injury, how can that person feel that they're getting proper attention for the issue when the two across the way have police service and no medical background?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
We're not answering a medical question. It's administered through an instrument called the “table of disabilities”, which is a regulatory instrument that basically says, objectively speaking, that if these these criteria are met, then you're entitled to a certain level of disability.
Let me use an example. I'm working from memory here, so I may not be totally correct with respect to this. With respect to my knee claim, if I have pain on a regular basis throughout the day, I'm due a medical impairment rating of four. If I have a restriction in motion of greater than 10 degrees, I believe, I'm due an impairment rating of nine. Then there are degrees of instability above and beyond that.
We don't sit down and do a medical examination. There is a doctor who has gone through and examined the veteran. He's answered these questions about range of motion, presence of pain, nature of the medication, etc. That has been initially turned over to the departmental adjudicator, who has applied the table to that medical evidence and has come to a conclusion. The veteran is obviously dissatisfied with respect to that conclusion, and he or she brings it forward to the board and says, because of whatever evidence, “No, the department was wrong, because I fit this slot.”
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Can you tell me what qualifications the people who are doing these physical health care assessments have?
Conservative
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I'm not certain what they are—
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Do you have standards? Have you set any?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
If it's special conditions.... If it's a neurological condition, it'll be a neurologist doing it, but generally, the musculoskeletal conditions are assessed by general medicine practitioners.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Okay. So we're not necessarily indicating that they're specialists in these areas, except for neurologic issues.
