New announcement: SECURITY(?) SITUATION at STE. ANNE'S (VET) HOSPITAL by Wolf William Solkin WWII

by Wolf William Solkin

SECURITY(?) SITUATION at STE. ANNE'S (VETERANS) HOSPITAL.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Over the past several months, and more resoundingly since the monstrous massacres and beheadings by egregious extremists of civilians and soldiers alike all over the so-called "civilized" world, there has been a cacophony of rabid rants by various verminous "Islamist State" terrorist groups, urging their brainwashed (but by no means brain-dead) minions to stay at home in their own country of residence and, in our case, to kill CANADIAN civilians, police and members of the military.

We need only bow our heads in tragic tribute to the recent gut-wrenching loss of two of our own, both proud serving members of the CAF, who were cold-bloodedly murdered in front of our very eyes and on our own soil, to realize that the infamous call to Jihad has already been heeded here at home, and will escalate exponentially world wide,as it is already doing on an almost daily basis.

It is with regard to that very issue, particularly as it impinges upon Ste. Anne's Hospital, that we should all immediately and determinedly solicit our respective representatives in Parliament, to put pressure on the Hon. Steven Blaney, Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, to spend a lot less time on pronouncing public placebos, and much more effort to ensure the prompt provision of an urgently needed comprehensive and effective program of preparedness and protection for the hundreds of handicapped Canadian Veterans at Ste. Anne's Hospital, plus the thousands of additional people involved daily in sustaining, supporting and enhancing our patients' overall health and welfare.

As a patient/resident of Ste. Anne's , I cannot help but be painfully aware of how critically close this institution is to fitting the perfect profile on any "lone-wolf" terrorist's wish list. We are the veritable poster child for an ideal soft target. We are not near any heavily policed city core, quite isolated from any surrounding built-up areas, yet very close to two major highways for easy and quick ingress and egress. Ours is a readily recognized Canadian government facility on federal land, fully staffed by federal employees. It is replete with a large body of disabled, confused and bed-ridden patients, plus the presence of hundreds of OSI/PTSD out-patients of the present generation. All are Canadian ex-service men and women, having honourably served Canada in World War II and Korea, sundry peace -keeping missions, and Afghanistan. The Afghan war plus the current RCAF support sorties and Special forces forays in the Iraq/Syria sector, appear to have been the latest pseudo-excuses for the Islamist extremists' most recent outpouring of terrorist threats to the safety and security of Canadians everywhere. However, the betting odds favour focusing on a vulnerable venue such as Ste. Anne's Hospital, which presents itself as
a plump plum, ripe and ready for the picking. "They" don't have to be rocket scientists to recognize how unbelievably unprotected we are!
As an added incentive to being a prime priority for any transient terrorist, Ste. Anne's is frequently the destination of choice for visitations by various groups of our armed forces, numerous Royal Canadian Legionnaires, platoons of military cadets, and hosts of kindergarten to teen-age school children, plus assorted Service Club members, all coming and going every day of the year. In addition we welcome a plethora of Veterans' visiting family members and friends, let alone the vast array of volunteers who constantly serve "their" Veterans in innumerable and invaluable ways. And last, but by no means least, the countless numbers of devoted and dedicated employees, from practitioners to preposees, who keep this facility functioning at full throttle, every precious day.

And yet, against the spectre of one or more armed and angry terrorists, I, among others, cannot discern any significant sign of safety or security measures to speak of, other than a squad of civilian Commissionaires who, while serving mostly as gate-keepers, sitting serenely in their glass booths (except when they leave their posts to pop outside for a smoke), have their unarmed hands full just 'buzzing' people into or out of the building, often without even asking for any identification, as long as they simply sign in as a patient's visitor. In point of fact, one of the well-used building entrances is perfunctorily "manned" by camera and microphone alone, while another entry is just locked up and left unattended.

As an irresistible aside, I must add that these same Commissionaires are most content, competent and conscientious at their jobs, when barring bona fide patients/Veterans from attending special events such as Remembrance Day Services, if the latter (all delinquents in their nineties, and most in wheelchairs) have criminally forgotten or lost their invitation cards. To give due credit where debit is due, they do perform perfectly well as unfeeling ushers and bullying bouncers, but as "Security Guards" ??? ........stop pulling my one semi-useable leg! Assigning those rent-a-cop wannabees to that task would be hugely hilarious, if it weren't so hazardous to our health!

Out of conscientious concern for those of my comrades who expressed their ongoing anxiety to me about their exposure to possible personal harm, I broached these breaches in our purportedly protective protocols to Ste.Anne's uppermost echelons of Management. I was told that everything was well in place for our overall safety and security, and was directed to meet with the Director of Strategic Services (whatever that connotes). That person would then inform me of the all-encompassing security measures already in hand, so as to reassure me that "All's well with the world", thus hoping to preclude any need for me to delve further into the matter . I was then told how there were quick communication links with nearby local emergency, fire and police personnel, who , AFTER being notified by Ste. Anne's, could arrive within ten minutes(!). to cope with whatever major problems arose to confront us. In addition we were to count on the Commissionaires in their glass booths, ready to rush to our rescue. When I made so bold as to inquire whether said glass was bullet-proof against an automatic assault weapon, the astounding answer was "I'm sorry, but I don't really know; that had not really occurred to me"...and with that simplistic statement of stultifying ignorance stemming from the in-house head of security, it took no time at all for me to confirm my gut feeling that, insofar as its security concerns are concerned, Ste. Anne's Hospital is indeed in deep doo doo , and has much to be considerably concerned about !

The incontrovertible fact that this facility is very much In harm's way and faces a serous security vacuum cannot be denied, even by those bureaucrats who are blinded by budgetary boundaries. . My comrades and I plead for prompt and preemptive protective action,not just "asap", but "immediately, if not sooner". We need to be provided NOW with an effective sufficiency of well trained, fully equipped, and highly motivated security guardians, preferably readily available and otherwise unassigned military personnel, on a full 24 / 7 / 52 schedule. No plan is perfect, but perhaps a minimal presence of two military vehicles with two appropriately armed soldiers in each, constantly circling our building(s) in opposite directions, is but one simple solution (and at no added cost!). Only by some strong and visible armed presence BEFOREHAND, can one hope to discourage, deter, prevent, or at the very least mitigate the effects of any sudden devastating "lone wolf" attack by some crazed Canadian convert/jihadist, upon those Veterans who had, in their time, faithfully fulfilled their sworn duty to serve and protect the Government of Canada and its citizens from enemies at home and abroad. They now need those roles to be reversed, and that favour to be returned......PRONTO !

My next obvious move was to write to Public Safety Minister Blaney, (formerly Minister of VAC,who is fully familiar with both our plant and population), to impress upon him that he must needs appreciate Ste. Anne Hospital's precarious position, and erase the fears that beset some of the more frail and fragile among us. I did just that, not once but twice (in fact, sizeable portions of this column's comments have been lifted and/or paraphrased from that correspondence), but nary a nod or Ray of recognition from the very person whose paid job it is to "minister" to the safety and security needs of the self-same citizenry which employs him. I even remarked that, notwithstanding his time and effort expended on his pet piece of anti-terror legislation labelled C-51, its prodigious piles of paper don't stand a snowball's chance in hell against a fistful,of C-4, or an AK-47 burst directed at Ste. Anne's much vaunted but equally valueless entry posts, which rightfully should be one of the first concerns of his ministerial agenda.

In sharp contrast to Blaney's apparent indifference to my protestations, I did later receive the inbred courtesy of a personal response from General (Ret'd) Walter J. Natynczyk, the recently appointed and, I firmly believe, devoted and dedicated Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada...a veritable "Veteran's Veteran". His forthright letter referred to there being "a detailed security plan in place to protect all of our Veterans and employees at Ste. Anne's Hospital (which)) is reviewed and monitored regularly...in line with the Policy on Government Security ( of which I confess my ignorance)...based on on-going risk and threat assessments...that Ste. Anne's...is one of the most secure hospitals in Quebec, in terms of infrastructure...and continuous presence of "security officers?" ( the question and quotation marks are mine). The Deputy Minister, in whom I have an implicit trust as to both his integrity and intentions, added that "the protection and security of our Veterans and employees at Ste. Anne's Hospital is one of my top priorities". I believe him, as far as it goes, however, I do not believe that it goes far enough to fulfil the functions which I feel are warranted by our glaring weaknesses. I was brought up to "Trust, but Verify", and I have yet to arrive at that desired destination while I envision Ste. Anne's Veterans so very much in harm's way. I hope to hell and back that my disquietingly queasy qualms prove to have been unjustified at the end of the day, but should my prediction pan out, and my comrades and I suffer due to lack of foresight and the absence of an abundance of caution as our shield, then our severed heads could well be upon the head of the Minister of Public Safety(etc.) and his bundle of bureaucratic billmeisters.

There is no paranoia prevalent among 'the troops'. We at Ste. Anne's simply have a better observation post from which to detect the raw reality of this new and insidious invasion of our fought-for way of life. We are also better able to identify the need to bring up reinforcements to take proactive steps to confront the enveloping enemy BEFORE he strikes at us, rather than just a reactive, post -facto defensive position easily overrun and inevitably too little and too late to be of any use, other than to bind the bloody wounds of the traumatized survivors .

Undoubtedly, this Veterans' refuge at Ste. Anne's deserves the same level of preparedness and protection as is now afforded to other government buildings, offices and agencies. Similarly, it must merit the same standards of safety and security as are now furnished to our elected representatives and their bureaucratic buffers in our own Canadian Houses of Parliament.
Somehow this scenario inevitably brings to mind a venerable Biblical adjuration; something about...."Do unto others as you would ...".

Surely we would all wish not to have to mourn the tragic loss of any more true Canadian patriots such as W/O Patrice Vincent and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo...even two is too many to tolerate. No more need be said, as the dead clearly speak so forcefully to the living, as well as for themselves.

SAFETY. FIRST, LAST AND ALWAYS !





To all in the audience...do feel free to put in your two cents' worth ( even if it's only in current Canadian currency) , and, lest we forget........

....... LEAVE NO VET BEHIND !




Wolf William Solkin
Ste. Anne de Bellevue, P.Q.





Other articles to read:

A VETERAN'S VOICE: Intro / TRANSFER of Ste Anne by Wolf Solkin WWII Veteran
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15356.msg16529#msg16529

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15368.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

Medical/Dental Standard of Care

Medical/Dental Standard of Care

The purpose of this policy is to provide direction with respect to death or disability benefit claim applications based on the error or omission of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to exercise the expected medical/dental standard of care to its personnel.

Policy: http://bit.ly/StanddardofCare

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php

New announcement: Don’t Give Up the Fight: A Blog on Military Trauma and Suicide

Don't Give Up the Fight: A Blog on Military Trauma and Suicide

Suicide is Not Simple, Secrets, Lies, and Suicide, A Failure in Leadership, DND vs. VAC, Told to Leave the Facts to the Government, The Suicide's Pain Becomes the Survivor's Pain etc

Please visit the Blog for those articles and more:

http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/leenaars

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15363.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Coming Back Home: Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych.

Coming Back Home, Dr. Dee Rajska, C. Psych., is meant to be a resource of information about service-related trauma. It's written for veterans, serving members of the armed forces, and their families and supporters. When possible, I try to write broadly enough to make the blog useful to other groups too – like law enforcement and first responders, and even civilians coping with mental health concerns.

The Trouble with Positive Thinking, Your Love-Hate Relationship with your Anxiety, Mindfulness: Learning to Observe Without Judging, PTSD and the science behind why you can't just "get over it", Panic Attacks: Where They Come From, What They Are etc

Coming Back Home: http://bit.ly/ComingBackHome

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15362.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Disentitled despite service to Canada

Disentitled despite service to Canada

http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/article_44b7b830-da6e-11e4-b5b9-5bdfdcbd7e3f.html#.VR_6D0kRA7o.twitter

Posted: Friday, April 3, 2015 6:57 pm | Updated: 7:36 pm, Fri Apr 3, 2015.

Don Plant | 0 comments

The Harper government is offering another new lump-sum benefit to Canada's most critically wounded soldiers, but most of them don't qualify for it, says a Kelowna veteran.

Patrick Wilkins served 20 years in the military, including two tours in Bosnia and one in Afghanistan. Even though he's considered 92 per cent disabled, the new $70,000 benefit unveiled this week by Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O'Toole will elude him.

"The criteria is so narrow," Wilkins said. "Anyone who's listed as permanently disabled, unless it's a one-time physical injury, won't qualify. If it's an injury over any length of time, like a chronic or psychological injury, you'll be denied because it's something that was accumulated."

At 44, Wilkins is considered permanently impaired. He suffers from chronic back pain after he fell out of a helicopter during a combat exercise when he was 19. He has irritable bowel syndrome, two bad knees, an anxiety disorder and erectile dysfunction.

He suffered post-traumatic stress disorder during his mission in Afghanistan in 2006-07. He now operates a part-time business taking people on sidecar tours but is unable to work steadily and relies on his wife Dorothy to care for him.

Once Parliament approves the legislation, Conservatives hope the critical-injury payment will complement the existing lump-sum awards system, vilified by soldiers and veterans since it was introduced in 2006.

A Commons committee has said the disability awards system is less generous to wounded soldiers than the courts are to civilians hurt in workplace accidents. Wilkins suspects the new one-time award is meant to appease critics before this year's federal election.

"There's nothing that gets people's hearts and minds moving more than seeing someone stand up there with medals on their chest who fought for their country calling someone else a liar," he said. "It changes people's perception, even if you're a strong Conservative."

Wilkins collects a small pension based on his years of service and CPP disability.

He received $247,000 in lump-sum payments, an amount that sounds substantial but doesn't carry over a lifetime, he said.

Dorothy Wilkins estimates the money adds up to what the couple would receive as a full pension over four years.

"When he was injured, I was working for the Workers' Compensation Board in Alberta. I saw the difference between what military gets and what WCB pays out for people, and it's a big difference," she said.

If houses cost just $200,000, the lump-sum awards would be sufficient, said Patrick. The couple invested most of his payout in their house but struggle to make ends meet.

"I never planned on making the only trips in my life to the hospital to get medication because we can't afford to do anything else," he said.

The system of lump-sum payments for pain and suffering has been a lightning rod of controversy for the Conservatives. It's one reason angry veterans of the mission in Afghanistan launched a class-action lawsuit against the federal government.

The military recognizes an injured veteran affects the spouse. But Dorothy fails to qualify for benefits to caregivers who give up work to stay at home because she suffered a breakdown caused by Wilkins' PTSD and can't return to work, he said.

If the government brought back monthly disability pensions, the lives of most wounded veterans would improve, Wilkins said. Instead, too many have squandered the large sums they received all at once.

"They weren't healed yet. They wasted it," he said. "I have friends who pissed it away — drank it, bought trucks, and now they have nothing.

"People say they should have known better, and they're right. A 19-year-old kid — you give him $180,000 for PTSD, the only thing he can think about doing is drinking and partying to relieve some of the pain and stress. . . . He's trying to forget."

— With files from The Canadian Press

ARTICLE: Fewer caseworkers left to help veterans http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/article_e4e927a8-da6e-11e4-abf3-a3793d53c5e9.html
?ARTICLE: Kelowna lawyer has BC veterans' backs http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/news/article_95bff260-783a-11e4-9b5f-1bf9f04da57d.html

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15361.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Study adds evidence on link between PTSD, heart disease

Study adds evidence on link between PTSD, heart disease

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/varc-sae032615.php#.VR8FHqFzJpM.facebook

http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/88984.php

In a study of more than 8,000 veterans living in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, those with posttraumatic stress disorder had a nearly 50 percent greater risk of developing heart failure over about a seven-year follow-up period, compared with their non-PTSD peers.

The findings appear in the April 2015 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence linking PTSD and heart disease. The research to date--including these latest findings--doesn't show a clear cause-and-effect relationship. But most experts believe PTSD, like other forms of chronic stress or anxiety, can damage the heart over time.

"There are many theories as to how exactly PTSD contributes to heart disease," says Dr. Alyssa Mansfield, one of the study authors. "Overall, the evidence to date seems to point in the direction of a causal relationship."

Mansfield was senior author on the study while with the Pacific Islands Division of the National Center for PTSD of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). She is now with the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System and also an assistant adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of Hawaii.

The study tracked 8,248 veterans who had been outpatients in the VA Pacific Islands system. The researchers followed them an average of just over seven years. Those with a PTSD diagnosis were 47 percent more likely to develop heart failure during the follow-up period. The researchers controlled for differences between the groups in health and demographic factors.

Out of the total study group, about 21 percent were diagnosed with PTSD. Of the total 371 cases of heart failure during the study, 287 occurred among those with PTSD, whereas only 84 cases occurred among the group without PTSD.

Combat service, whether or not it led to a full-blown PTSD diagnosis, was itself a strong predictor of heart failure. Those Veterans with combat experience were about five times more likely to develop heart failure during the study period, compared with those who had not seen combat. Other predictors of heart failure were advanced age, diabetes, high blood pressure, and overweight or obesity.

The authors of the study say they didn't have access to a full range of data that would have provided further clues as to the PTSD-heart disease link. For example, they were not able to distinguish in the data between those who had served in the Gulf during 1990 and 1991, and those who served more recently in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor were they able to analyze whether racial or ethnic identity plays a role one way or the other, as that information was not complete for most veterans in study.

Nonetheless, the authors point out that the work is the "first large-scale longitudinal study to report an association between PTSD and incident heart failure in an outpatient sample of U.S. veterans."

Heart failure, in which the heart grows weaker and can't pump enough blood to adequately supply the body's needs, affects about 5 million Americans in all, with some 500,000 new cases each year. People with the condition feel tired with physical activity, as the muscles aren't getting enough blood.

The new results, says Mansfield, provide further potent evidence of the nexus between mental and physical health. The practical upshot of the findings, she says, is that veterans with PTSD should realize that by treating their PTSD, they may also be helping to prevent heart disease down the road.

By the same token, the authors point out that VA and other health care systems may need to step up efforts to prevent and treat heart failure among those with PTSD.


###

Lead author on the study was Samit S. Roy, with Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota. Other coauthors were Dr. Randi Foraker, with OSU; and Dr. Richard Girton, with the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System.

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15360.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: SISIP CLASS ACTION - Undeliverable Settlement Packages

SISIP CLASS ACTION - Undeliverable Settlement Packages

Dear Class Members,

Re: Dennis Manuge v. Her Majesty the Queen
HFX. No.: T-463-07
Undeliverable Settlement Packages


Since April 15, 2013, we have delivered settlement packages to over 8,000 class members. We have not been able to send a number of packages to some class members as we do not have their current contact information. If you have not received your settlement package to date,
please review the list below to see if your name is on it. If so, please contact (902) 444-8417.

First Name Last Name
John Barry
Roy Bartlett
Greg Beaudoin
Jimmy Bechard
Denis Bigras
Matthew Bish
James Bolger
Robert Boychuk
James Campbell
James Campbell
Woodrow Cassell
Brian Caunter
Miguel Chavez
Mario Chevarie
Douglas Clark
Joseph Coffin
Michael Dahl
Kevin Dent
Roderick Dooley
Ricky Duff
Thierry Duhamel
Cyril Esliger
James Fischer
Tyler Flaumitsch
Dominique Fortier
Christopher Fraser
Eric Gagnon
Allan Gervais
Troy Graham
Jeffrey Gravel
- 2 -
undeliverable packages posting for lnvb & fb (3-jul-14).docx
Mark Griffiths
John Harvey
Bruce Hogan
Sirkka Kallio
Kane Richard (Betty)
Daniel Lafontaine
Pierre Laforce
Line Laliberte
Yves Lambert
Jean LeBoeuf
Stephane Leroux
David Levenick
Yves Lorrain
Miriam MacKinnon
Jason Marleau
Bruce McChesney
Douglas McGowan
Kurt McKechnie
Donald McKinley
Yves Michaud
Richard Morency
Geoffrey Morgan
Dwayne Nassy
Myron Owad
Derek Peckford
Bradley Perrault
Michael Popovich
Luke Powers
Keith Pringnitz
Shawn Raines
Rene Ratti
David Riche
Nancy Auclair
Wayne Rostad
Anthony Sanger
Caroline Savage
Michael Springchief
Francois St-Laurent
James Swan
Walter Taggart
Amy Thistle
Brent Thornhill
Alyre Tremblay
Nathan Wedel
Shawn Wheaton
- 3 -
undeliverable packages posting for lnvb & fb (3-jul-14).docx
John White
John Zulak

http://bit.ly/LeaveNoVeBehind

To unsubscribe from these announcements, login to the forum and uncheck "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." in your profile.

You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=15358.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.