Chong doesn't get FAS program value
Times Colonist (Victoria)
Sep 24 2009 
Byline: Jennifer Waters

Healthy Living Minister Ida Chong has eliminated the Healthy Choices in Pregnancy project to cut spending.

Does she have any idea how much money one FASD-affected person will cost the government in a lifetime?

I will provide a tiny piece of that answer -- an educational assistant at school, a supported child-care worker at daycare, respite, speech therapy, group therapies, occupational therapy, a mental health counsellor, extra visits to a pediatrician, a psychiatrist and, of course, medication. This so far for a child under 9.

Then there is the personal cost to the child -- no invitations to friends' homes or parties, not having a best friend, children talk about you due to your extreme behaviours.You often misinterpret what people say, so it seems you are always in "trouble." Your judgment can't be trusted so you can't ride your bike to school or play at the park or play street hockey with the others without an adult to interpret what is safe to do because you don't have that ability.

If you have to go into a store and you melt down, people make comments and think you are "spoiled" or "bad." You look like everyone else and they don't know you have brain damage. It will always be there.

If the program resulted in one child being spared this damage, our government would save money and that child would have a far better quality of life.