Veterans slam office closures
Face-to-face service at the Saskatoon Veterans Affairs office was key to Dave Bona’s recovery from posttraumatic stress disorder and alcoholism.
He fears younger soldiers now won’t have access to those services when they crash.
“They’re creating a situation where veterans aren’t going to be able to get access, especially the people that are the most at risk,” Bona said.
Eight Veterans Affairs offices across Canada — in Kelowna, B.C., Saskatoon, Brandon, Man., Thunder Bay, Ont., Windsor, Ont., Sydney, N.S., Charlottetown, P.E.I. and Corner Brook, N.L., are scheduled to close Friday as part of a move toward more online and remote services. A ninth office has already closed in Prince George, B.C.
Up to 4,500 Saskatchewan clients will now have to travel to Regina to see a case worker, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
Bona served in the first Gulf War, Cyprus, Somalia and Rwanda.
Those experiences — seeing one friend die in a live fire exercise, seeing another shot and killed in Somalia, pulling children’s bodies out of minefields in Rwanda — scarred him.
He developed “bad coping skills,” leading to the drinking that broke up his marriage, he said.
He then lived in army barracks, where his binge drinking, an attempt to escape the horrific images he saw, became more regular.
That led to bar fights and bad behaviour that got him court-martialed and charged in 2000.
Then, he finally saw a psychologist who diagnosed him with chronic PTSD. That’s when Bona started his road to recovery and he started dealing with the Veterans Affairs office, meeting with his case worker.
“YOU NEED THAT FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTION.”
DAVE BONA
“It’s very important. You need that face-to-face interaction,” he said.
Online or phone service “doesn’t work for a person with significant addiction issues — which, the majority of guys with PTSD, that’s one of the things they’re looking at.”
These days, he has given up on calling Veterans Affairs, after waiting on the phone for up to 45 minutes for service.
Because of his PTSD, he didn’t have any patience when he first got help, he said.
“If I was on the phone for five minutes, trying to go through this process to verify who I was, this that and the other thing, I’d hang up the phone.”
“THESE CLOSURES WILL PUT VETERANS AT RISK,” ROY LAMORE
In Ottawa on Tuesday, a group of ex-soldiers, some of whom served in the Second World War, urged the federal government to halt the closure of the Veterans Affairs regional offices.
During their Parliament Hill news conference, seven veterans said they feel betrayed by a government that promised to take care of them and younger soldiers.
“These closures will put veterans at risk,” said Roy Lamore, a resident of Thunder Bay whose service dates back to the 1940s.
“I hope the government is listening. Why do we, as veterans, have to beg?”
Former corporal Bruce Moncur, who was wounded in Afghanistan in 2006, says the online system has increased frustration even among his Internet-savvy friends seeking benefits and treatment.
Marianne Hladun, Regional Executive Vice-President for the PSAC Prairie Region, said she fears some veterans will “slip through the cracks” without seeing a case worker in person.
Veterans may not realize what services are available to them, and the wording on a request may determine whether it’s accepted or denied, she said.