Evidence of meeting #18 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 way.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
You mentioned something, though, that I just wanted to ask you to clarify. I didn't quite understand it, and I apologize for that.
You talked about doctors in DND and then civilian doctors, and about your lacking access to doctors in DND, which caused you some problems. Can you expand on that? I wasn't sure I caught the point of how that would have helped in the long run?
As an Individual
The way that a service provision is dealt with in National Defence, or at least the way it was done when I was serving.... It may have changed since then. Six years is a long time, and a lot can happen. But while I was serving, if you were a reservist on a class A contract, which is what most of us were, and you were injured, it was not a medical doctor who was your primary care. We were required to use the civilian service.
As an Individual
Yes. Class B and class C get some care through the military medical service, but even that, especially for follow-up, once you're injured your class B, pseudo-fulltime, contract tends to end. The class C guys who went overseas, if they got injured badly enough that they needed a lot of care, were being repatted here. It gets complicated whether or not they will receive continued care through the military service, or have to go to the civilian service.
Even as a class B, when my back injury occurred during a training course at CFB Gagetown, I was stripped from course and shipped back to Toronto three days after the injury occurred. No imaging was done at the base hospital. They never took me into Fredericton to a civilian hospital to do imaging. Instead they just doped me full of morphine, gave me a whole bunch of anti-inflammatories, and eventually shipped me back, and said I should go back to my unit.
There was no provision of military medical care once I was back here. I was immediately shunted out to the civilian service, so there's a very brief record from the medical service indicating that I was attended to at the base hospital, that I had complained of back pain, but that's it. The diagnosis of the back injury came from a doctor up at Sunnybrook, and that is being used by Veterans Affairs, and that's why it took four years of fighting because a civilian doctor said I was injured on this military exercise. What does a civilian doctor have to do with the military? Why are they doing this? A medical doctor out of Gagetown should have written this document.
The way the system worked and the way I was shunted back so quickly created a situation where there was no medical doctor originally signing off on it. On top of that, the medical doctors here in Toronto, whom I was eventually able to access because of the temporary categories that I had to be placed on because of the injury, didn't believe the injury occurred.
Liberal
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Callaghan, you said you received a bunch of papers each year.
As an Individual
Sometimes it's yearly, sometimes it's every few years. Because I'm a reservist, this is a whole other complicated ball game that I don't know if I'll have time to get into, the way that our benefits are done. Because I was permanently injured, I'm still on SISIP, but because of the changes that occurred last year with Bill C-58 and Bill C-59 , I'm also receiving financial benefits from VAC. Because I was deemed permanently injured, the provision of stuff like psychotherapy or the approval for psychotherapy, massage therapy, physiotherapy, all those go through VAC. So I'm receiving annual documents from SISIP, much like Paul Franklin being told that he must prove he has no legs anymore. In my case, I'm having to prove that I still have a demon haunting every living moment, and my back injury is still here.
With VAC, the package I got this morning contained the documents for the two-year mandatory review of permanent status. My original classification as permanently disabled with VAC occurred in 2012-13, so it's not even two years. There's a discrepancy on when they're sending out documents, but because I was removed from the rehab program, to maintain my weekly massage therapy and physiotherapy, both of which are used for pain management, and the biweekly psychotherapy, we're having to submit documents every four to six months saying I'm still injured, I still need this help. It is getting ridiculous.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
That was my next question, whether your paper work was from SISIP or the ministry—
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay. From the beginning until last year, before Bill C-59, were you receiving money from SISIP?
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Then since last summer, you started to receive earnings loss benefit from the new bill. Is that right?
As an Individual
The initial part works out to $2,050 a month, 75% of the old deemed salary of $2,700. That's coming from SISIP. The increase as a result of Bill C-58 brought reservists up to the equivalent of corporal basic, the base minimum that regular force personnel get. There was an argument between SISIP and Veterans Affairs over who would handle that. SISIP refused. VAC decided, okay, you guys are now eligible for ELB, on top of your SISIP, to top you up to this amount.
There's some really funny stuff going with the numbers. It's a problem also for reservists and it's been going on, and I just mentioned the deemed salary aspect. I do not know a single reservist who is getting paid the rank equivalency. All of us are being paid, regardless of our rank, as corporal basic, which in some cases can be a difference of thousands of dollars per month.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Callaghan, obviously you're well educated, with a Ph.D. in anthropology—
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
My wife is an anthropologist. I just wanted to ask, is it hard to fill out the papers as a Ph.D. candidate?
As an Individual
It is bloody overwhelming at times, with some of the basic paperwork. There's one annual form that we get from Veterans Affairs just to confirm that you're still alive, to confirm that you're actually receiving benefits, that you haven't been buried or anything. That one's the easiest. It's a check and a signature, and that's fine. But the ones to apply for new or different claims, the ones to continue claims, the ones to continue receiving benefits, I'm overwhelmed by.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Are those all part of the bunch you received this morning, for example?
As an Individual
Yes. I looked at them. The ones from this morning I'm supposed to take to doctors to get filled out. But of course, I have to work back with them. They're all based on whether you are able to go back to work. Also, there's a disconnect on what “work” actually is. That could be a whole other rant of mine. But even looking at those, how am I going to communicate these issues and these barriers to a doctor? Thankfully, I think my psychotherapist understands it well enough to help fill in that paperwork.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
You said also that you find there's a lack of information coming from VAC to you, but they ask you for a whole load of information.
As an Individual
They ask probing questions, sometimes questions that don't even seem appropriate. But it's more on your end of their actually trying to go, “You know what? You should be on this. You should be eligible for this.” There are case managers who do go out of their way to let us know. There are also some case managers who don't tell us anything.
Again, in a lot of how I've been speaking, except for some of the personal experiences, when I speak of “we”, I do that in my role as an anthropologist who is studying people like me, studying other veterans, working as an observer-participant, doing ethnography with them. I've heard so many horror stories coming back over the last five years, ever since I started grad school. This is not just me. This is problematic across the board.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
You said the diagnosis of the PTSD you are suffering from was not accepted by the ministry?
