Speech (committee meeting)

{
    "time": "2021-04-12 15:50:00",
    "attribution": {
        "en": "General (Retired) Walter Natynczyk (Deputy Minister, Department of Veterans Affairs)",
        "fr": "G\u00e9n\u00e9ral (\u00e0 la retraite) Walter Natynczyk (sous-ministre, minist\u00e8re des Anciens Combattants)"
    },
    "content": {
        "en": "<p data-HoCid=\"6627017\" data-originallang=\"en\"> Sure. Thanks very much for that. </p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627018\" data-originallang=\"en\">Right from when the pandemic hit on March 13 last year the department went to a remote working environment. I'm pleased to say that within a month we were back up to over 90% effective; that is, people had the right IT equipment and secure access. </p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627019\" data-originallang=\"en\">Automatically we started to reach out to vulnerable veterans, those who we believed were on the verge of homelessness and veterans who were in long-term care, and we linked with their families. We reached out to women veterans, indigenous veterans and anyone with an illness or ailment that, as deemed by our folks, made them vulnerable, including case-managed veterans. </p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627020\" data-originallang=\"en\">We continue to provide service daily. We receive about 1,600 phone calls a day and hundreds of texts a day. It is interesting that in some areas, like our phone service, we actually became more efficient in answering calls, certainly within the two-minute standard. We started piloting the use of tools such as this and Microsoft Teams to do virtual meetings with veterans. Our mental health supports went virtual almost immediately. We are very proud of the operational stress injury clinics and our clinicians across the country.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627021\" data-originallang=\"en\">At the same time, for cases in which our veterans were in very difficult palliative or frail circumstances, we still had employees who did home visits, occupational therapists and other professionals, in order to ensure seamlessness in support. We created a COVID-19 working group with veteran stakeholders so that we could hear from them and see ways and means whereby we could improve what we were doing. We continue to learn, having these meetings on a regular basis across the board. The fact that we were able to hire over 350 employees and train them during this environment in a virtual workspace was commendable for the team.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627022\" data-originallang=\"en\">I will stop there, sir.</p>",
        "fr": "<p data-HoCid=\"6627017\" data-originallang=\"en\">Bien s\u00fbr. Merci beaucoup pour cela.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627018\" data-originallang=\"en\">D\u00e8s le d\u00e9but de la pand\u00e9mie, le 13 mars de l'an dernier, le Minist\u00e8re est pass\u00e9 en mode t\u00e9l\u00e9travail. Je suis heureux d'affirmer que, en moins d'un mois, nous \u00e9tions de retour \u00e0 une efficacit\u00e9 sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 90 %, c'est-\u00e0-dire que les gens disposaient du bon \u00e9quipement informatique et d'un acc\u00e8s s\u00e9curitaire.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627019\" data-originallang=\"en\">Nous avons automatiquement entrepris de joindre les anciens combattants vuln\u00e9rables, ceux qui, \u00e0 notre avis, \u00e9taient sur le point de se retrouver sans abri et ceux en \u00e9tablissement de soins de longue dur\u00e9e, et nous avons communiqu\u00e9 avec leur famille. Nous avons joint des femmes, des Autochtones et tout autre ancien combattant ayant une maladie ou un trouble qui, selon notre personnel, les rendait vuln\u00e9rables, ce qui comprend les anciens combattants b\u00e9n\u00e9ficiant de la gestion de cas.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627020\" data-originallang=\"en\">Nous continuons \u00e0 offrir quotidiennement des services. Nous recevons chaque jour quelque 1 600 appels et des centaines de textos. Il est int\u00e9ressant de remarquer que nous sommes devenus plus efficaces dans certains secteurs, dont notre service t\u00e9l\u00e9phonique, o\u00f9 le traitement des appels se fait dans le d\u00e9lai pr\u00e9vu de deux minutes. Nous exp\u00e9rimentons l'utilisation d'outils tels que celui-ci et Microsoft Teams pour tenir des r\u00e9unions virtuelles avec les anciens combattants. Notre soutien en sant\u00e9 mentale est pass\u00e9 presque imm\u00e9diatement en mode virtuel. Nous sommes tr\u00e8s fiers des cliniques de traitement des traumatismes li\u00e9s au stress op\u00e9rationnel et de nos cliniciens partout au pays.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627021\" data-originallang=\"en\">Parall\u00e8lement, dans le cas d'anciens combattants se retrouvant dans une situation tr\u00e8s d\u00e9licate en raison de leur faiblesse ou de soins palliatifs, nous avions toujours des employ\u00e9s qui effectuaient des visites \u00e0 domicile, soit des ergoth\u00e9rapeutes ou d'autres professionnels, afin de veiller \u00e0 la continuit\u00e9 du soutien. Nous avons cr\u00e9\u00e9 un groupe de travail sur la COVID-19 avec des repr\u00e9sentants des anciens combattants afin de les \u00e9couter et d'am\u00e9liorer nos fa\u00e7ons de faire. Nous continuons \u00e0 apprendre et tenons ces r\u00e9unions r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement. Le fait que nous ayons \u00e9t\u00e9 en mesure d'embaucher plus de 350 personnes et de les former dans un tel environnement virtuel montre tout le m\u00e9rite de l'\u00e9quipe.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"6627022\" data-originallang=\"en\">Je vais m'arr\u00eater l\u00e0, monsieur.</p>"
    },
    "url": "/committees/veterans-affairs/43-2/18/general-1/",
    "politician_url": null,
    "politician_membership_url": null,
    "procedural": false,
    "source_id": "11224493",
    "document_url": "/committees/veterans-affairs/43-2/18/",
    "related": {
        "document_speeches_url": "/speeches/?document=%2Fcommittees%2Fveterans-affairs%2F43-2%2F18%2F"
    }
}