A cut to autism funding is not the answer

Re Parents blast province over autism overhaul, Feb. 7 Lisa MacLeod says that her plan to effectively remove funding for autistic children over 6 was necessary because there is not enough money to address all the needs of her department.

Perhaps if the premier had not made the ill-advised decision to cut the capand-trade program, the over a billion dollars of money that was coming to the province, but which is now lost, would have covered these kinds of programs.

Now, the province is compensating for this loss by taking money away from health care and education.

What a poor trade-off. Gail Erlick Robinson, Toronto It’s clear that the value of the dollars involved is far greater to the Ford government, than the number of potential votes lost in the “autism community.”

It’s certainly imaginable to place a $140,000 lifetime cap on funding for the family of an individual patient, but it’s truly unconscionable to further burdon this segment of the population.

$140,000 barely begins to cover the average costs of such care and treatment for those afflicted with autism. Doug Ford doesn’t care. Those lost votes can’t hurt him and he will likely continue to slash and burn services to the poor, needy, underprivileged and desperate. No one could be further from his base.

His behaviour, attitude and machete has been consistent since he took office and the sooner he’s recognized as the ego driven, power mad and vengeful Donald Trump clone that he is, the better for Ontario and its citizens. Rob Cowan, Toronto Up to 70 per cent of children with autism have significant mental-health issues.

It isn’t clear whether these families will get the support they need in the overhaul of autism services.

But, what is clear is that a fee-forservice model for autism won’t reduce long mental-health-care wait times.

I had a heartbreaking discussion with a parent of a teen with autism and psychosis.

Her family and thousands of others need integrated mental-health and autism services from trained specialists.

The Ontario government has recognized the need to reduce wait times for autism as well as mental health, but addressing them separately and in this way may worsen the crises. A substantial investment in the upcoming budget supporting an integrated approach is needed.

Ministers Elliott and MacLeod have a shared interest in this issue as do thousands of families.

Let’s work together to urgently get these families help. Kimberly Moran, Toronto