Veterans Affairs hiring 300 people to cut down disability application backlog

Nearly half of the46,000disability applications before Veterans Affairs Canadaare considered backlogged but federal officials insisted today they finally have a plan to deal with it.

For many years, the number of incoming claims hasoutstripped the department's abilityto process themwithin its self-imposed service timelines.

The backlogis partly the result of changesintroduced by both the former Conservative government and the currentLiberal one thatexpanded or redrafted the list of entitlements.

Veterans Affairs has announced it is hiring 300 more full-time staff over the next two years to focus on the most common applications, including those forhearing loss, tinnitus and musculoskeletal conditions.

"Veterans should receive the benefits and services they're entitled to in a timely manner, and the current backlog is unacceptable," said Cameron McNeil, a spokesperson for Veterans AffairsMinister Lawrence MacAulay.

"The recent investment of nearly $90 million that our government made will allow Veterans Affairs to hire hundreds of new staff and speed up processes to ensure veterans receive faster decisions. This has been the minister's number one priority since he was sworn in, and we will continue to do everything we can to address the backlog."

The department said it expects to have the new staff trained and in place by January of next year. Senior department officials said they hope to get the backlog down to below 5,000 files with the new measures, andto eliminate all overdue applications by March 2022.

"We're going to go as fast as we can," said one senior official, who spoke on-background at a teleconference briefing earlier today.

The plan also envisions hiring an unspecified number of temporary employees to deal with the backlog.

The proposals were presented last week to the House of Commons veterans committee for study.

For months, the veterans department has tried to reassure veterans advocates and groups that represent former soldiers that it is taking action by limiting mandatory medical consultations and simplifying the tools claims adjudicators use to assess disability.

Last year, the federal government streamlined the process for post traumatic stress disorder applications, introducing a less specific form for doctors to fill out.

The average wait time to process an applicationis 34 weeks.The service standard is supposed to be 16 weeks.

Different files pass through the system at different speeds, depending on their complexity.For example, a first-time PTSD claim takes an average of 34 weeks to get through the system, according to a Veterans Affairs online calculator.Buta veteran who has multiple conditions in addition to mental health issues can wait 53 weeks to have applications processed.