Caregivers of military veterans living with PTSD not recognized, says advocate

Jenny Migneault is traveling across three provinces this summer to speak with the families of military veterans.

An advocate for caregivers of military veterans living with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Migneault says that her journey is a personal one.

Her 15-year marriage to a veteran with PTSD also meant that Migneault took on the roles and responsibilities as primary caregiver, even quitting her job to take care of him.

That marriage ended in divorce, although they remain friends to this day.

“The biggest impact was on my own mental health myself, because I wasn’t prepared, educated to deal with military PTSD,” Migneault said. “I was damaged.”

Migneault is probably best known for being publicly brushed off by then-veterans affairs minister Julian Fantino in front of the media in May 2014.

That moment marked the beginning of her career as an advocate.

Four years later, she’s now a member of Veterans Affairs Family Advisory Committee and authors a blog for the French military community.

“The caregivers are fighting a battle of identity and dignity, through education, support and recognition, including the financial recognition,” Migneault said.

Migneault, who will be speaking with six families while she’s in Sault Ste. Marie during her stay, says that the federal government doesn’t want to acknowledge caregivers of military veterans living with PTSD because it would simply cost too much money.

“When it comes to a mental health wound, once again the system demonstrated that [it] didn’t understand at all what the wound means, the nature of the wound, or it would be too expensive to recognize it fully,” said Migneault. “I believe it’s a question of money.”

“Talking about caregivers is a challenge to veterans affairs, because to be honest, they don’t know how many we are,” she continued. “They know that they have close to 200,000 clients - veterans, mostly - but how many caregivers are directly affected by those 200,000?”

Following Migneault’s public encounter with Fantino, the federal government introduced the ‘caregiver relief benefit,’ which was a lump sum grant worth just over $7,200.

On April 1 of this year, the federal government introduced the ‘care recognition benefit,’ which provides caregivers of veterans with $1,000 per month.

Migneault calls the government’s latest financial relief efforts for caregivers “ridiculous.”

“The criterias make it totally inaccessible for a veteran with PTSD, unless he’s missing both arms and legs and he cannot eat himself, and a caregiver would feed him,” Migneault said.

Migneault's advocacy efforts have taken her across the country to raise awareness about the plight of caregivers for veterans living with PTSD.

She and her spouse are now hitting a number of regions that she didn’t make it to during a previous six-month tour.

Her summer tour began in North Bay on June 21, and she’ll be heading out west to Manitoba and Saskatchewan following her three-day visit to the Sault.

“We’re nothing, so the political battle is huge, and it needs to be talked about because it’s a reality,” Migneault said.