Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and committee members.
It's my pleasure to be here before you today. My name is Debbie Lowther, and I am the chair and co-founder of Veterans Emergency Transition Services, VETS Canada, but I'm also the spouse of a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, a man who served this country proudly for 15 years until his career was cut short due to injuries, both physical and psychological. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2002 and was released in 2005. We founded VETS Canada together in 2010.
VETS Canada is an organization dedicated to assisting veterans who are homeless, at risk of becoming homeless, or are in crisis. To date we've assisted over 1,400 veterans across the country; the vast majority of those veterans have struggled with mental health issues, some diagnosed and some not yet diagnosed. While some of our volunteers have health care backgrounds, we as a whole are not a health care organization, and we are not researchers. We are simply a group of over 500 volunteers who work closely with these veterans who, for one reason or another, have found themselves in crisis.
To that end, I'd like to share some of our observations with you as they relate to mental health and suicide prevention. I would also like to point out that the majority of our volunteer base is made up of still-serving members and veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP, as well as their family members. Many of these volunteers have also dealt with or are still dealing with mental health issues. These common bonds of military service and mental health struggles lend themselves to wonderful peer support, which we have learned is a key component in the successful transition from both military life to civilian life and from a life of crisis to a stable life.
As I said earlier, the majority of the veterans we serve are struggling with poor mental health. Many end up on the street due to lack of medical attention for their mental illness. This lack of medical attention seems to occur either because the member or the veteran did not seek help or because the help they received was insufficient: there are long wait times to see mental health care practitioners, and there is difficulty finding mental health care providers who have experience and knowledge in dealing with PTSD.
The veterans community has been asking for quite some time for a veteran-specific treatment facility. Veterans can go to Homewood and they can go to Bellwood, and we've had veterans go through those programs successfully, so I'm not criticizing them. These facilities depend heavily on group therapy, which is great if the group has some common ground, aside from the fact that they all have mental illnesses.
To give you an example, I'd like to relay what a veteran who had been to Homewood explained to me. This veteran had deployed twice, once to Bosnia and once to Afghanistan, and had witnessed horrific things. While at Homewood he was participating in group therapy, and what he said to me was this: “How am I going to talk about finding mass graves in bloody combat when the girl next to me is talking about her mummy-and-daddy issues?” He certainly was not intending to diminish the importance of her issues; rather, he was more concerned about putting the thoughts and visions that he had in his own mind into someone else's.
I know this to be a common concern for veterans suffering from PTSD. My own husband was very reluctant to open up in the beginning of his treatment for PTSD for fear of transferring his torment into the mind of the psychologist that he was seeing at the time. A treatment centre specifically for veterans would most definitely be more effective, as we know that veterans will be more open to treatment if they are surrounded by their peers, people who understand them.
We're seeing that men and women who wear the uniform are often forced to take it off before they're ready, both mentally and financially. We've been hearing for a long time about closing the seam, but it still isn't closed. These situations are what could be referred to as a domino effect. In the cases of medical releases, the member is dealing with an injury, either physical or mental, so there is stress number one. They're losing their career, their sense of purpose, and their support system, so there's stress number two. They're waiting unacceptable amounts of time for their pensions and benefits to kick in, their savings are being depleted, and their credit cards are being maxed out; there's stress number three. We all know that financial issues often lead to marital breakdown, or at least marital discord; there's stress number four.
Imagine dealing with all of this while struggling with mental health issues such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety. All these stresses tend to intensify one another, and they affect coping abilities. Mental health is impacted by each of those factors of job loss, financial hardship, and marital or familial breakdown. I think even a person who doesn't have mental health issues would have a hard time dealing with this domino effect of one stressful situation after another.
I would also like to point out that the member isn't just losing a job or a career: serving in the military is a way of life, a culture all its own, and it is the member's identity. If you were to ask my husband which branch of the military he was in, he wouldn't tell you that he was in the army. He would say, “I was army.”
Our men and women who join the military go through basic training to learn this new culture or way of life. They're stripped down and turned into soldiers. Perhaps at the end of their career there should be an exit boot camp to teach that soldier, sailor, airman, or airwoman how to be a civilian.
Another thing that would be helpful would be to have the releasing member assigned a peer, someone who has already gone through the process, to provide them with support. As I mentioned earlier, we know that peer support is a crucial piece in a successful transition.
I'd like to go back to the medical release process for a minute, as it relates back to that seam that remains unclosed.
When a member is released from the military due to an injury—a physical or mental injury sustained as a result of service—that has been diagnosed by a Canadian Armed Forces medical officer, the member has to deal with a new department, Veterans Affairs Canada. You would think that they would accept the diagnosis of the Canadian Armed Forces medical officer, but no, that is not the case. They then have to be evaluated by a Veterans Affairs-approved physician. That physician may not agree with the diagnosis of the Canadian Armed Forces medical officer, so then what? Based on this new physician's opinion, the member does not receive a disability award—more financial stress. They can appeal the decision—more mental stress.
I know that this is not news to any of you. You've heard it all before. In fact, I brought it up myself the last time I was here. This process is a bureaucratic waste of time and money, but most importantly, it causes undue stress to the injured member.
In closing, I will mention suicide prevention. I don't think there's a concrete method of prevention, but I do think that we can put things in place to reduce the number of suicides. The first would be to keep the member in until things are lined up for them to transition seamlessly from DND to VAC. Maybe there needs to be a transition case manager who ensures that all paperwork is completed properly and who also ensures that the paperwork is not lost, as this seems to be a common problem. This process should include applications for benefits through VAC and SISIP before the member is released. A strong peer support network would also be very beneficial in suicide prevention. This would also include the veteran's specific treatment program.
Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today.