Shortage of child psychologists has children with learning disabilities waiting for years
Despite assurances that the Province of PEI would reform the Disability Support Program and provide new funding,Premier Ghiz has turned off the tap to vital services that Island children need.
The PEI Disability Support Program is not available to all the children on PEI who need assistance. Only 5% of Islanders with disabilities get help under the program. 22,000 Islanders have disabilities.
Children with learning disabilities must be assessed by a child psychologist before they are able to receive help from the program and in the school system. The ratio of one psychologist for 3,000 students means children wait more than two years for assessment.
“The appropriate ratio, or the ideal ratio I guess, for psychologists to students would be one psychologist for every 1,000 students,” said Psychological Association of P.E.I president Dr. Rhonda Matters. “It would be like maybe one for every 3,000, ballpark, is where we’re at.”
Children who have learning disabilities are floundering in the school system for years before they can get assistance.
The Province knows this and is deliberately keeping the number of psychologists lower than required. The PEI government has erected an administrative barrier to children receiving assistance. Government budget planners know that restricting children from assessments keeps them out of the DSP.
By restricting funding for psychologists they can reduce the budget cost for services to children with disabilities. The low salaries offered to psychologists mean positions don’t get filled.
The government has money but it spends it unwisely on bricks, mortar and consultants – the patronage expenses. For example, more than $10 million has been spent each year on the eHealth computer system that is likely to never work. If it does work, there is no hope it will add one iota of productivity to delivery of health care.
Politicians like big and expensive projects that sound progressive like “patient information system.” They can get press releases printed in the newspaper and video interviews on television. There are no kickbacks to friends and publicity from actually helping people.
A CBC reader made the ironic comment:
“This government reminds me of a guy I knew at University. He’d get money from his parents for his rent and then he would spend it on a night out with his friends, drunkenly going through his money. In this case we are the parents, the taxpayers, and this government is the guy who blows his rent money on frivolities like a night out with Regis, Kelly and the cirque crew.”
Where is the Disability in-Action Committee on this issue? They are in a boat in Charlottetown harbour without a rudder or oars. Perhaps the government has them studying the problem and preparing another empty report.
P.E.I. health psychologist positions go vacant
About half of the positions for psychologists in P.E.I.’s health-care sector are waiting to be filled.
The shortage is a chronic one, says the Psychological Association of P.E.I., and is on top of a services shortage in schools that has children waiting more than two years to be assessed for a learning disability.
Association president Dr. Rhonda Matters told CBC News Thursday that the Eastern School District’s 5.4 positions are filled, but that still isn’t nearly enough to keep up with the need.
“The appropriate ratio, or the ideal ratio I guess, for psychologists to students would be one psychologist for every 1,000 students,” said Matters.
“It would be like maybe one for every 3,000, ballpark, is where we’re at.”
Higher wages needed
Dr. Lee-Anne Greer, a clinical psychologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, said there’s no question schools need more help. But as bad as things are in education, problems in the health sector are worse.
“There has been a longstanding, severe shortage of psychologists,” said Greer.
“If you look at the province of P.E.I. right now, we have 9½ full-time equivalent positions available, and of that half of them are vacant.”
Greer said part of the problem is a wage gap between the jobs in education and health. School psychologists typically get paid $15,000 to $20,000 more than those who work in hospitals or mental health centres.
Both Greer and Matters said higher salaries are needed to recruit more psychologists to the Island.
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