First, I want to acknowledge and to recognize that was probably one of the most heartfelt acknowledgements of service, so thank you, Mr. Desjarlais. That meant a lot to me.
I've been a client of Veterans Affairs for 11 years after an Afghanistan injury, so I've had a lot of dealings with them. On this issue in particular, I'll say for the physical injury, Veterans Affairs has been very helpful, but I almost felt like I was dealing with a private insurer who denies everything the first time in the hope you'll go away. Eventually, my physical.... I'm well serviced by Veterans Affairs in regard to my physical injury.
With regard to the class action, I really want to say something here that's important and that was my experience, and I fear it is the experience of many more women. When the class action was established, the Veterans Affairs policy regarding sexual trauma and the impacts on women's health and women's lives as a result of multiple traumas—not just single-incident injury—was not identified in the veterans care policy. I've been writing the ombudsman on this issue.
When I was diagnosed—I spent six months being diagnosed by a clinical psychologist with female sexual interest disorder, which is a new DSM diagnosis, and with persistent depressive—Veterans Affairs ignored one of them. I spoke to four different people, who said, “Well, we didn't deny it. We just ignored it.” You know, that's kind of insulting to me as a Canadian and as a client—you just ignored it. I asked them to put that in writing, but they wouldn't. The desk officer laughed, and I said everything in my dealings with Veterans Affairs I have to put in writing, but you're not affording me that same opportunity.
In the ombudsman report, as I suspected—I've been in the government and in the military a long time—their policies weren't updated at the time the government announced the class action. I was right. They sent me the new policies, and in the new policies, they wouldn't accept the clinical psychologist's report. He's a Ph.D. with over 25 years' experience.
They wanted me to go to my GP. She was insulted. She wrote a statement to Veterans Affairs, saying, “Are you aware of the state of health care in Canada? You're asking me to fill out these forms when an expert spent six months evaluating, and you won't accept a clinical psychologist.” I contacted the ombudsman and pleaded with them to change the wording to have clinical psychologists, not only GPs or psychiatrists, approved, and they wouldn't. They said their hands were tied. To me, that is just insane.