711 LOCAL KIDS WAIT TO BE O.T. ASSESSED

THE government’s failure to provide timely assessment and intervention for children who require occupational therapy (OT) in Louth has been criticised by a local TD.

Gerry Adams made the criticism after he received a response to a parliamentary question on OT assessment which confirms 4,186 children on the waiting list across the State and 711 on the Louth waiting list.

He said the figures were ‘disgusting’ and the State has ‘ample resources to address this problem’.

The Sinn Fein leader said: ‘Early diagnosis and intervention is essential to enable these children to get the supports they need to achieve to the best of their ability both at school and in their general lives.

‘ The Government is presiding over a system in which children with queried disabilities are waiting two years for initial assessment and a further two years for therapy.

‘ The truth is that many children caught up in this rotten system will be left school before any support is forthcoming. What are their life chances following years of denied assistance?

‘I have spoken to numerous parents of children who are on the waiting list for OT assessment. These children have largely been referred for assessment by their schools, so an obvious need has been identified by teachers.

‘It is an absolute shame on this government, and all government TDs, that there are 179 children under five years old and 532 between the ages of five and 18 in County Louth who have not even been assessed, much less received any necessary therapy.

‘I have spoken to parents who have gone without meals themselves in order to procure private OT assessments for their kids, when faced with a two year waiting list.

‘Yet, even with a diagnosis of dyspraxia or dyslexia or autism or one of any number of disabilities, the HSE requires all children to be assessed within the public system in order to obtain follow up therapy.

The Government and the Minister for Health must urgently direct resources to address these waiting lists. It is time to sort out the recruitment issues which mean that these children go without’.