Autism System Needs Tweaking

When it comes to treating children with autism, Ontario governments have a long history of failure. The former Liberal government struggled for 15 years to develop a program that was rational, affordable and acceptable to parents. It fell short on all three criteria.

To briefly summarize, Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty ran on a promise of extending treatment to school-age children but didn’t follow through. His government won a court battle to deny help to older children, then the Liberals backtracked, allowing treatment for those up to 18. Unfortunately, it didn’t provide enough money to deliver the service. The Liberals’ legacy is a program that serves just over 10,000 children, but has stranded almost 25,000 on a waiting list.

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government took a different approach. It tried to clear the waiting list by divvying the money up so everyone got something, but the amounts fell far short of the needs of the children with the most severe problems. The government responded to a parental firestorm by doubling funding and creating an expert panel to redesign its first redesign.

Unfortunately, that effort will fail unless the government fixes the fundamental flaw that has crippled every version of the autism program to date.

Although one might think that a neurological disorder would fall under the health ministry, In Ontario it is the responsibility of the social services ministry. The difference between the two ministries is not trivial. Social services deals mainly with things like welfare and disability payments, where eligibility is established and a sum of money is assigned. Everyone is treated equally. Health care uses a triage approach to treat those with the greatest need first.

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