N.B. gov't defends decision on severely autistic

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N.B. gov't defends decision on severely autistic
Associated Press

FREDERICTON — The New Brunswick government is defending its decision to send severely autistic people out of the country for treatment, including a 13-year-old boy currently housed on the grounds of a provincial youth jail.

Tony Huntjens, minister of family and community services, spoke out for the first time on Tuesday about the brewing controversy over the province's lack of services for autistic and severely handicapped children.

Huntjens said the autistic boy in question, who is being cared for in a small cottage on the grounds of the Miramichi Youth Jail, soon will be joining one other autistic New Brunswicker at the Spurwink facility in southern Maine.

Huntjens said it costs the province more than $300,000 per person, per year to use the Maine facility, which specializes in helping children and adults with behavioural problems.

"I'm hopeful that before too long we will have a facility in New Brunswick and we won't have to go to Spurwink," Huntjens said, adding that he's looking at a five-year time frame.

"But until we have the expertise, there's no sense me faking it and saying we're going to copy Spurwink because we can't. We don't have the manpower yet."

Huntjens said the province wants to take a careful, step-by-step approach to building services for the autistic. He said it has recently invested $700,000 in a training program for caregivers.

But critics charged that the Conservative government's approach is piecemeal, slow and driven only by political response to public pressure.

Harold Doherty, spokesman for the New Brunswick Autism Society, said the $700,000 the province is putting into training is roughly the same amount it will be spending per year to keep two autistic people in Maine.

"They're penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to the autism file," said Doherty.

"They don't want to pay the money up front and then they end up in these extreme situations where they end up paying much more."

He said Premier Bernard Lord's government is only reacting now to the controversy because of growing public outrage.

Letters to the editor and newspaper editorials have lambasted the government's haphazard approach to caring for the mentally and physically handicapped.

Anne Robichaud of Kent County, N.B., whose 32-year-old daughter has severe mental and physical disabilities, said there's not enough help for families struggling with the severely disabled.

"The system is sick," she said. "It just doesn't work. I cannot continue like this. I'm tired."

Huntjens said the autistic boy in the Miramichi facility will be sent to Spurwink some time in the next two weeks.

Government officials said they tried to make other arrangements for the boy but he became violent and the services available at other facilities were not meeting his needs.

Autism is a disorder of brain function that appears early in life, usually before the age of three.

Children with autism have problems with social interaction, communication, imagination and behaviour.

I think that they could better treat them by living in a house with people that they know. My cousin is severely autistic, and he's in his thirties now, but when he was born the doctors told my great-grandmother to put him in a mental hospital. They didn't put him in one, and when he grew to be around 5-7 years old, he taught himself to read and write, and he loves to write a lot on his typewritter he has at home. I couldn't have even taught myself to read and write when I was that age; that just shows that the doctors who were demanding that sort of treatment in a mental hospital or something were wrong about autistics. Of course, back in the 70's they thought that they were just mentally ill and some thought they were a burden to people's families, which is extremely sad to watch when people leave family members in a mental hospital or a treatment place.

I fully agree on that. I just don't feel a building on a jail property is an appropriate even if temporary place for a severely autistic 13 yr old boy. That's just me as a parent talking and being Aspergers myself with a moderate HFA son. I'd honestly not respect the government for that. I would be going out of province if I had to find a place that could help me and my son if I was in that situation.