Thank you.
It's great to be able to present on behalf of the veterans and soldiers who are still serving about some of their concerns. I spent 32 years as a soldier, and then I was employed by the operational stress injury social support program for 10 years. I've seen service delivery before and after the new Veterans Charter. I can say that it's a bit different.
One of the biggest things I noticed with soldiers who are transitioning out of the military into the civilian world, and who are entitled to veterans services, is the lack of knowledge they have of those services once they are out of there. A lot of the information is passed between veterans, and so on. The transition briefings are not up to speed as to what they should be. A lot of the soldiers who are leaving are either physically or mentally injured, and they're not receptive to the changes they're going to go through. A lot of the information that is passed on to them goes over their heads, especially with those who are going out with a mental health concern. The information or education shouldn't just be done in one shot as they transition out. There should be a managing of the individual for maybe up to a year while that veteran accesses all the services that are provided by Veterans Affairs.
Another thing I noticed from the change recently to having Blue Cross take over the service delivery and a lot of aspects of the veterans benefits is that the veterans I know feel they're just dealing with an insurance company, which they are. Before that, when it was managed by case managers, service officers, and so on, it was a lot easier to get stuff across when they were talking to someone face to face. A lot of the veterans feel they're dealing with an insurance company, as if they worked for GM.
One of the biggest things for the vets is what's available and what they may be entitled to. Most of that is handled between veterans. Tonight I'll be attending a support group for a soldier with operational stress injury, PTSD, and there's on average 10 to 15 soldiers at those meetings. The bulk of the discussion is about how to access certain services, because people are not being kept up to speed on things.
The system, as we feel it is now, is more on a pole between pushing stuff forward and the vets who are pulling stuff out to try to get access to it. The delays, the paperwork, and the timeliness of trying to get things done is frustrating for our veterans, especially for those with mental health concerns. I visited vets when I was a peer support coordinator, and I asked them about what was going on with their claims, and did they get a letter or anything. They would say, yes, and that it was on the fridge. I'd go and look at the fridge and there were maybe 10 envelopes unopened there, and I would open them up. The reality between the corporate end of things and the person on the ground is that there's a big void.
Another thing that's frustrating for the veterans is the second-guessing of what they're entitled to. They'll jump through the hoops, it'll go forward, it'll be adjudicated, and then it will be denied for whatever reason. A prime example is about accessing medication that a soldier was receiving in the service when he got out. The classic answer from Blue Cross is, “We don't fund that drug”. It's an approved medication. Now the vet has to work through that to get access to the drug, and so on. During that phase, who knows what's going on with the lack of the medication the vet needs because DND doesn't give you a bag of meds to give you six months once you're out of the military. You're going out cold turkey.
Over the last several years since the new Veterans Charter came in, two things that have happened are the downsizing and the opening of new offices. To my mind, you need the actual person-to-person interaction to get things done. Dealing with the 1-800 number just doesn't work. In fact, if anything, it's going to get a young soldier flagged for being aggressive by arguing with some lady at a call centre. They don't swallow that very well.
The case managers should be involved with every veteran. As they transition through, the ones who have ongoing concerns and problems should remain attached, because not every veteran heading out the door has a ton of problems. Myself, I transitioned quite easy. I waited for things, they came through, and I moved on. It's the troubled cases. A guy is getting out of the military, and by the way, he's getting divorced because of his PTSD and the problems it caused, and now he's trying to split up a household while trying to access benefits. Some of them end up in hospital, plain and simple.
This is another burning point. We have traditional vets and we have the CF veterans, the new veterans. To me, a veteran is a veteran, and the naming of things is wrong. But the new vets, if you want to call them that, understand the Internet. They know how to access documents, websites, and go searching for things that they feel are lacking, that they feel entitled to, or that they're confused about. When they present this stuff, sometimes they're seen as aggressive by dealing with it themselves. People are afraid of the new vets, I think, especially at some of the VAC offices, just because of that. They come in, they want to see somebody, they want to talk about it, and they get shoved off to the system. They have to climb through it and then access the advice they need.
The service delivery across Canada is not consistent. A lot of the vets know guys out in Vancouver, and they'll be on the phone or the Internet talking about service. The Vancouver guy might say he applied for something and got it, no problem, while a guy in St. John's says he did the same thing and they turned him down.
I know there are probably nuances that make a difference. Overall, though, when I was working for Veterans Affairs and DND with OSISS, I noticed a difference in processing between larger centres, smaller centres, and rural areas. The application of the charter is interpreted by the individual dealing with the case. When you start interpreting things, somebody always interprets something in a different way from somebody else down the hall. That adds frustration to the veteran's day-to-day life.
To finish off, what we need is a proper handover from DND to VAC, which is not happening. It's scandalous. They're not realizing that they're dealing with sick and injured soldiers. It'd be nice if they kept you in the military until you were 100% healthy when you walked out the door, but it doesn't work that way. Some people are just starting in therapy, some people are still waiting for operations. It's not the way to hand over a soldier to Veterans Affairs.
There should be detailed briefings, not just one but several over time, as a soldier transitions out and then after he transitions out, on what he's entitled to, what services are available, and how to access them. There should be more case management, face-to-face. The timeliness of initiating or getting the services out to the individual is important. There are some horrible numbers on how long it takes to get something done, and this just adds to the frustration and the feeling of insecurity as the soldier is transitioning out. He wonders how he's going to survive. He wonders about this, and then about that. That's some of the digs in there.
The next thing to see about is the amount of paperwork involved. If we're supposed to be a paperless society, I think we made a wrong turn. It's amazing the amount of paperwork, including the paperwork a soldier has to get signed off by doctors.
I'll tell you now, doctors don't like filling out forms. They like seeing paying customers, not the $50 or whatever it is they're getting to sign a form. The amount of paperwork is ridiculous within the system.
There are a lot of good people working in the veterans world. They're overworked, and they're making things work. When you hear “making things work”, that's not the way it should be. It should be just out there.
The consistency across the country has to be there. You have to start handing out what soldiers or veterans are entitled to.