Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good day to everyone here.
I'll begin by expressing gratitude to the committee for acknowledging and exploring the sex- and gender-specific differences that can result in inequitable health outcomes for servicewomen and women veterans as a specific and unique group. It's been said already that this study has been a long time coming, and I am thrilled to be here with you today.
Mr. Chair, I join the CAF when I was 31 years old. I was in the best shape of my life, physically and mentally. As the shortest and smallest person in my platoon, I wore the same size rucksack carrying the same equipment a large man would wear. After 15 gruelling weeks, I left St. Jean with my commission as an officer, along with stress fractures and plantar fasciitis in both feet. It took five months of physiotherapy to get myself back up and running. I think most Canadians—and perhaps you—would be shocked to learn that, so far, my two feet alone have cost VAC almost $50,000 for treatment and compensation. I think that's a ridiculous amount of money for a problem that is preventable.
More serious than feet, ill-fitting equipment also at best aggravated and at worst caused pelvic floor weakness. It's led to serious reproductive complications for me. I've had high-risk pregnancies, one miscarriage, one pre-term birth, a prolapsed bladder, and ongoing stress and bowel incontinence. I am 44 years old, and I often have to wear a disposable piece of adult underwear, because a panic attack or nightmare can lead to an accident.
I can be extremely humiliated about sharing that. It's difficult, but I believe it's important for everybody to understand what the real costs are to people like me when our system keeps making women-specific issues invisible. “Invisible” is a word that I think rings true for a lot of us. I feel my experience with VAC has been invisible. My injuries are invisible.
We know servicewomen are disproportionately targeted with sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, sexual violence, gender-based discrimination and abuse of power. I experienced the full gamut of sexual misconduct in the first 18 months of my service. By far, the most damaging was a sexual assault 18 months in, which resulted in my developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
Post-traumatic stress disorder presents physically for me. It comes out somatically. I think this is something especially true for women, as opposed to men. This is something the VAC table of disabilities—that all-important document—does not recognize. Mental pain leads to physical pain. For instance, take someone who has arthritis in their back. They're inactive. They may become isolated; then they may become depressed or anxious. That makes sense to all of us. The reverse is also true. If someone who is depressed or anxious becomes inactive and isolated, their body falls apart. That's exactly what's happened to me.
The bottom line is that I have been diagnosed with 10, more than 10, distinct physical health illnesses since being assaulted, which will require lifelong monitoring and treatment. That includes restless leg syndrome; type 1 diabetes, which came out of nowhere at age 36; chronic migraines; fibromyalgia; sexually transmitted infection; pelvic floor and reproductive issues; sexual dysfunction; lower back pain; arthritis in my neck; extreme sensitivity to sound and light; sleep apnea; and tinnitus. That's just the physical, and it's all directly related and interconnected with the fact that I have been in a state of hypervigilance for 12 years.
I haven't submitted claims with VAC for all of these conditions, because, as I said, I feel like VAC cannot see me and my disabilities. It does not recognize them as being related to my service. It's a waste of my time and energy, but my health keeps worsening as my conditions go untreated. Every application for benefits that I've put in for a physical condition—aside from the feet, which was clear—has been denied outright, and I have had to appeal.
I'm aware of the time, Mr. Chair. I'd like to speak to this committee about ways forward. I'd like to speak about the creation of external advisory committees. I want to add my voice to the growing chorus of calls for VAC to release its gender-based analysis report, which we have yet to see. I'd like to see VAC make its Canadian-funded research available publicly. I would like to see this committee recommend the creation of a comprehensive system of medical care that will meet women's needs. I'm talking about in-patient care and outpatient care. I have been talking about this for seven years, but I am happy to keep talking, because one day we will make this happen.
There's so much more I could say, but I will end here. I am open to answering your questions, even if they feel uncomfortable for you to ask. We cannot change what we can't name. We can't be shy about this, so I urge you to make strong recommendations to VAC based on our testimony, and those which will follow, so that VAC becomes transparent, open and able to meet the sex- and gender-specific needs of servicewomen and women veterans like me, because I don't want anyone else to struggle the way I have.
Thank you for having me.