Currently the medical folks themselves are advisers to the chain of command. Again, the psychiatrist would advise the family doctor that the general duty medical officer actually implements....
We have a medical category system with lots of different things—vision factor and all of that—but the important ones now are the geographic and the occupational factors. If any health condition, from knee pain to back pain to mental health conditions, has stabilized, then we will communicate in a way that's confidential, separate from disclosing the illness, the long-term prognosis and limitations that the person will have on a permanent basis.
If somebody needs to see a health professional once a month, if somebody can't walk on uneven ground, if somebody shouldn't be in stressful environments, shouldn't do shift work, shouldn't do this, you give those kinds of things. Then, the leadership makes a decision on whether that person can be retained or sometimes accommodated with those limitations—those kinds of ideas.
Universality of service comes into that, of course. I'm sure you folks have discussed that. The idea is that if I can't go overseas and put on a rucksack and drag an injured person out, I will violate universality of service, and the organization has to decide to keep me, keep me for a short time, or to medically release me. That's essentially the process.
We are looking at different ways within health services of better understanding the illness. It's not diagnosis-based, not based on “this illness means this”; it's the functionality. It often represents the risk to the individual themself, not necessarily the risk to the organization. If you go into theatre with an unstable C-spine or with significant mental health issues, nobody knows for sure how you will respond when you are exposed to those stressful situations, but it's the risk idea.