Christina Hutchins
By Military Woman
Q. What’s new in Canadian military/Veteran women’s health initiatives?
A. There definitely has been an uptick in recent political interest and funding for “women’s health.” In December 2021, the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to the Minister of National Defence prioritised “investments to understand and address the clinical, occupational and deployment health needs of CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) women.” In April 2022, the federal budget targeted $144 million over five years for military health investments. In fall 2022, the Treasury Board approved the “Women and Diversity Healthcare” initiative. This leaves CAF well placed in 2023 to further optimise military women’s operational readiness and, together with Veteran Affairs Canada (VAC), ensure the long-term health and wellbeing of military women. Exciting times!
On February 1, 2023, the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C., on behalf of the CAF, hosted the first, and hopefully annual, “Military Women's Health Workshop” (see YouTube for recordings of the presentations). Highlights from the Canadian speakers included a new post-partum musculoskeletal injury prevention program, women’s health questions to be added on the next medical screening questionnaire update and a review of how the Sexual Response Support and Resource Centre came into being.
Highlights from the British speaker included the importance to consider hormone health throughout a military woman’s career. Menstrual health was recommended to be treated as a vital sign on par in importance to screen and document as pulse, temperature and blood pressure.
Highlights from the American speakers included a call to empower military women directly with more access to trusted military appropriate health information. Examples of possible shared decision-making tools include the downloadable “Decide and Be Ready” phone app and the online “Deployment Readiness Education for Service Women” document. Recommendations were also made for all military bases to offer same-day walk-in contraceptive services and for all tactical combat care training programs to include breasted mannikins.
Now let’s look at what’s been happening at VAC.
VAC held its first annual Women Veterans Forum in 2019. Shortly thereafter Christina Hutchins was named Senior Director, Office of Women and LGBTQ+ Veterans. In 2020 a Women Veterans Forum Update and a separate 2SLGBTQI+ Veteran Roundtable were held virtually. No events were held in 2021 or 2022 due to COVID. In 2023, a Women Veterans and 2SLGBTQI+ Veterans joint event was held online February 9th followed by a hybrid event February 16th. Links to the reports and recordings of all forums will be available via the Office of Women and LGBTQ+ Veterans website. Although the 2023 events were informative, it is hoped by many that 2024 returns to the original 2019 model that allowed for meaningful in-person discussions and exchanges between Veterans and VAC staff.
So here is where it gets real.
Despite a clear increased interest in both military and Veteran women’s health there concurrently remains a lot of confusion and mixed messages around the topic area. There is no common understanding of what problem(s) we are trying to solve. There is also no set of agreed to definitions for the majority of the commonplace terminology used including woman/female, gender/sex, health/wellness and operational stress injury/military sexual trauma to start. This lack of clearly stated objectives, terms and accountability measures makes the environment permissive to external agendas and influences, including political, to come into play. As a result, there are new women’s health related research projects, policies, benefits, activities and Veteran community programs which sound good on the surface, but don’t survive first contact with the women they are supposed to be serving.
The historic status quo for defence project and research management may not be the best way ahead for successful military/Veteran women’s health initiatives. Transformational culture change may be required to ensure the voices of those most impacted are both heard and included at all stages of project/research development. Best practices for military women health initiatives must be lifespan focused and not stop the day of CAF retirement/release. Best practices for military women health will likely need more collaborative international research with other military women and less comparisons to military men .
