Family ‘scared’ as autistic boy faces release without supports
A Halifax-area mother issued an emotional plea for help Thursday for her family and for her nine-year-old son, who is due to be released next week from a confined hospital unit but suffers from violently aggressive fits of frustration because of his severe autism.
“Our Callum is a nine-year-old little boy and he’s scared — we’re scared,” Carly Sutherland told reporters during a news conference at the Nova Scotia legislature.
“We need help and we are at the point where I am sitting in front of strangers begging you to share our story,” she said through sobs as she was supported by her husband John.
Sutherland said her family is living a “nightmare,” because there are no proper supports or treatment for Callum.
Sutherland said her son was admitted to the IWK Children’s Hospital Oct. 19, and remains confined to an isolated unit for safety reasons because there is no appropriate therapy available. She said Callum is far too violent to participate in the unit’s school or recreational therapy, and isn’t verbal enough to access counselling services.
Sutherland said her son, whom she described as “an awesome little guy,” began losing his limited communication skills over the past year to the point where they “dropped off a cliff.”
“His only means of expressing his constant frustration was to lash out with extreme aggression. I was covered in abrasions from bites and was concussed from being head butted. On bad days there could be over 100 incidents of violence before breakfast.”
Sutherland said she and her husband interpreted Callum’s aggression as a “desperate cry for help.”
Testing showed no underlying physical cause for her son’s behaviour, Sutherland said. She said the family ended up hiring behavioural interventionists “at great expense” because Nova Scotia doesn’t cover such services for anyone over the age of 6.
She said she agrees with hospital staff that the best way to deal with Callum’s complex needs is on an outpatient basis, but said the “joke” is that no public outpatient services exist.