N.L. speech therapist says she can't get a job, despite 2-year waitlists for kids needing help
Molly Clarke wants to work for N.L. health-care system, but says province isn't hiring
A speech therapist eager to provide publicly-funded services to kids in Newfoundland and Labrador says despite long waitlists for patients, the province simply isn't hiring professionals in her field.
Long waitlists for child autism and ADHD assessments are often followed by another wait for speech therapy, according to speech-language pathologist Molly Clarke.
Unless families can afford private practice, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services told CBC, waitlists can be between 18 and 24 months long, depending on the child's location.
Clarke said that waitlist isn't because of a shortage of speech therapists in the province, though: instead, she says it's due to a shortage of jobs within Newfoundland and Labrador's public health-care system.
"I think parents are kind of led to believe that the lack of services and the wait times are due to the fact that there's a shortage of clinicians, similar to the way there's like a shortage of family doctors," Clarke told CBC. "There's actually so many clinicians."
Other provinces and territories are reaping the benefits.
"Me and two other girls here. We work for the same school district in the Northwest Territories. We're servicing these kids," Clarke said.
Speech-language pathologists help address speech delays and disorders, language delays and disorders, fluency disorders, and swallowing and feeding disorders.
From Paradise, Clarke says she became an SLP to help Newfoundlanders and Labradorians by working within public health care. After working remotely for other provinces, she opened a private practice in Mount Pearl in addition to her public practice in the Northwest Territories.
WATCH | Why this health care professional is waiting to work in the public, not private, sector:
"I always thought I would work in public. Both my parents work in the public system," Clarke said.
Then she noticed her colleagues working in the public system were casual call-in staff, and had been for years.
"Kids here are being massively underserved, both in the school system and in the health system," she said.
Importance of early intervention
For children, Clarke said, early intervention is key.
"A lot of the time parents don't really notice some things on the go until two because there is a bit of a range in which children acquire language," she said, adding that family doctors may encourage parents to "wait it out" before diagnosing a problem.
"If they're two, by the time you put them on the waitlist, I think it's currently like 14 to 18 months for a [speech-language] assessment. After that, it's an additional year for treatment," Clarke said.
"We're looking at the child being four, 4½ years old, moving towards kindergarten."
Once a child reaches kindergarten, Clarke said they age out of the waitlist that could have provided them with SLP services offered at the hospital. Delayed language can also delay reading and writing.
"If you let a child go who can't communicate, and they go to age two, age three, age four, and they're still not communicating — the long-term impacts of that are much more severe than if they were just treated at two," she said.
Government quiet except PCs
Clarke contacted the provincial government in the hope that making the case for early intervention would open up some public jobs. Otherwise, she says, children from low-income families will be disproportionately affected.
"I was like, maybe they're just like completely unaware that there's like a surplus of us out here," she said. "Most parents who are low-income or on income support ... they can't afford this for their kids."
Clarke only heard from MHA Paul Dinn, and PC Leader Tony Wakeham, who brought up some of her concerns in the House of Assembly in May.
Wakeham said a group of parents of children with autism contacted him concerning the waitlists for psychological assessments and the lack of intervention during their early development period — a time when someone like Clarke could step in.
"If I was premier of this province right now, I'd ask you for her number, because this is too important. We need people," Wakeham said. "We owe it to these parents, we owe it to these families to make sure that we can provide these services."
Available supports
Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell responded to Wakeham in the legislature. She said an assessment or diagnosis does not determine that early intervention that is required.
"No one is waiting for a specific diagnosis to offer supports to our children," Howell said. "Once a challenge is identified ... there can be measures implemented. This can happen through our early childhood windows, in some of our early childhood centres or it can happen in our school system. If a teacher or support person identifies that a child has a particular need, then supports can be put in place immediately."
Last week, the Department of Health released phase one of its health human resources plan, which focuses on the retention and recruitment of health-care professionals, including nurses, therapists, laboratory workers, and pharmacists, over the next decade.
Of the 21 health-care professions listed, speech-language pathology was not one of them.
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
