Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and committee members. As the chair indicated, my name is Janice Burke and I am the director of mental health for the Department of Veterans Affairs. With me to also respond to questions is Raymond Lalonde, director of the National Centre for Opera

Veterans Affairs committee  I can begin. Thank you for your question. I’ll try to go in order, based on what your first questions were. You mentioned your concern about the epidemiology and the causative factors. In terms of the research we have on PTSD, at least, it has been pretty well identified in te

Veterans Affairs committee  No. When we look at wait times for treatment.... As you know, Veterans Affairs Canada does not actually provide health care to veterans. However, we do purchase and we do have our operational stress injury clinics that can provide immediate access to veterans who are in need of

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Raymond, I think you can respond in terms of even our turnaround times for people to get into the clinics.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. In those situations, in our VAC office, a case manager is generally assigned to veterans, particularly veterans who have more severe PTSD and require rehabilitation. It starts with the case manager who is working with the veteran, and if it is identified, obviously, t

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, that’s the key. But if I could add as well, when we have people within 72 hours.... For example, because we have agreements with seven treatment centres that treat PTSD, co-morbid conditions, PTSD and substance abuse, we have been able to get people into these centres. We ha

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Vincent.

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could respond as well, you're absolutely right that we do know what causes suicide is multifactorial. We do know that serious physical injury like amputations, serious chronic pain, psychiatric disorders, stressful life events, even imitation.... And when people may see thei

Veterans Affairs committee  Now, with respect to World War II and Korean War veterans, and veterans after those wars and maybe prior to the implementation of the new Veterans Charter, you're absolutely right that we need to be doing more outreach. We actually have an outreach strategy in place where we are

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for your remarks. On your first point, about the suicide rate, we'll certainly remove that reference. It wasn't intended in that way. We just tried to accurately report the results, because it is a CF study and it's based on the age group that's within the Canadian For

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I certainly read the article, and I also read the article today that reported the story wasn't quite factual. We did talk with National Defence, because, as you know, we work very closely with National Defence to ensure that through our network of clinics across the country

Veterans Affairs committee  I could certainly start, and Raymond could add in. We have a number of studies that will be coming out. For example, our research folks are partnering with other organizations to do the life-after-service study. Those results, again, will be out in early 2011. And that's lookin

Veterans Affairs committee  I may not have covered the question quite the way I should have, if you are referring to the suicide prevention report or strategy that we have developed. As I said, we're not waiting to do work in that area, for Statistics Canada to give us data, because that will just give us d

Veterans Affairs committee  I could certainly start, and Raymond and Tina can respond. The post-deployment study, for an example, that the Canadian Forces did to identify any physical and mental health problems following deployments indicated that 13% of the 8,000-and-some they had surveyed indicated they

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. I'll respond, and then certainly you can add to it. When you look at the system that we have today between Veterans Affairs and National Defence, and what has been built over the years, I feel it's a pretty good system in terms of our having all of the major areas covered