President of the South Lake Macquarie Returned and Services League (RSL) sub-Branch, Daniel Sloan, said the assessment and claim process for veterans was often protracted and fraught.

And when the process drags on for months, or years, the financial toll alone can be enough to push some veterans over the edge.

Mr Sloan said it was time the federal Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) got serious about streamlining the assessment and claims process for some of the country’s most deserving but vulnerable people.

“The whole system is well overdue for a shake-up,” Mr Sloan said. “The legislation is very savage. The task of getting a condition accepted (as being combat-related) is very onerous.”

Mr Sloan made the comments this week while welcoming news the federal government would boost spending on mental health support for veterans.

The government committed $6 million to establish a Phoenix Australia Institute for “world-leading experts and research” to improve mental health treatment and reduce the burden of post-traumatic stress among veterans. An additional $3.1 million was committed to further extend access to the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service.

“That’s really good, it’s tangible. But there’s a long way to go,” Mr Sloan said.

He said mental health issues were a problem for veterans.

“It’s huge. There wouldn’t be many veterans that I know that don’t have some sort of condition,” he said.

Mr Sloan said it was very time consuming for veterans to get the support they required, and it often involved seeing multiple doctors and specialists, and negotiating various federal acts.

“And sometimes it just becomes too much for veterans, and too stressful to negotiate ‘the system’,” he said.

“But once the Department of Veterans Affairs accepts your claim, you’ll get the best medical care and the top doctors, and they’ll bend over backwards to help.”