Close the wait list to the clinic, if you’re in you were in line a few week ago you’ll get processed. All new patients get turned away and the BC Adult ADHD Clinic is killed. Thanks, BC Liberals, and thanks, BCNDP health critic Adrian Dix for doing nothing to stop it let alone mention it.
I’ve blogged about this before, BC Adults with ADHD Abandoned, and you can watch my Global TV interview on the closure of the only adult ADHD clinic in the entire province at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
Despite a year-long waiting list for an entire year, budgetary restraints have forced BC’s principal diagnostic and treatment centre to bar further referrals of adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, while they do a “review” of the program with no target completion date
As I mentioned before, it is a bookkeeping solution to a real human problem, once they added adult ADHD diagnosis to the clinic adults became 50% of the caseload, (More adults with ADHD than kids) the year-long 12-month wait list developed. Dr. Margaret Weiss the clinic director asked the BC government for funding to deal with the overwhelming demand and was refused.
Unfortunately, most doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologist haven’t been trained to diagnose and treat ADHD even though there are good clinical ADHD diagnostic guidelines available. So I hear complaints constantly from BCers who think they may have ADHD wondering where they can go for a diagnosis, sometimes complaining their doctor thinks they can’t have ADHD because they did well in school. Which of course bullshit, there are many Ph.D.s’s with ADHD let alone the MENSA ADHD SIG of 480 people.
Hopefully, some people at moosecamp and Northern Voice blogging conference may give me some ideas on blog activism or help get the word out about this problem by blogging about it, since there are more techies with ADHD than the average in the population. There are wait lists for many health conditions but here were just talking about getting basic diagnosis let alone treatment.
Or if you could let your MLA know about this, see the BC MLA finder and demand that the province either adequately fund the adult ADHD clinic at children’s hospital or create a separate adult ADHD clinic at another place since it seems like an adult clinic at a children’s hospital is politically vulnerable. You can also contact the BC premier, Gordon Campbell premier@gov.bc.ca ph 604 660-3202
Or George Abbott Minister of Health george.abbott.mla@leg.bc.ca ph 1 877 771-7557
Any suggestions or blog mentions or any MSM media types mentions would be greatly appreciated.