RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Founder of Sup­port Autism T&T Dr Rad­i­ca Ma­hase says she is thrilled that Al­lied Fam­i­ly Care Med­ical Cen­tre has opened in San Fer­nan­do of­fer­ing phys­io­ther­a­py, oc­cu­pa­tion­al, speech and de­vel­op­men­tal ther­a­py for chil­dren on the autism spec­trum.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ma­hase said there has been a short­age of these ser­vices for some time and many un­der­priv­i­leged chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly in south Trinidad, who could not af­ford to pay for ther­a­py.

“The ex­or­bi­tant cost of speech, oc­cu­pa­tion­al and de­vel­op­ment ther­a­py has al­ways been of con­cern to us. There has al­ways been un­equal ac­cess to op­por­tu­ni­ties for the in­tel­lec­tu­al, so­cial and phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of in­di­vid­u­als di­ag­nosed with autism in our coun­try,” she said.

Say­ing COVID-19 has ex­ac­er­bat­ed the in­equal­i­ties that ex­ist, Ma­hase lament­ed that “many autis­tic peo­ple, both chil­dren and adults have re­gressed be­cause of the lack of ac­cess to in­ter­ven­tion treat­ments.”

She said since Sup­port Autism TT opened Rahul’s Club­house a year ago, there has been a de­mand for ed­u­ca­tion­al and ther­a­py ses­sions. 

“In the past year, we have both autis­tic adults and chil­dren ac­cess­ing ses­sions dai­ly. We have been forced to open every day and we of­fered an av­er­age of 100 ses­sions a week. We present­ly have 135 autis­tic per­sons reg­is­tered at Rahul’s Club­house and we have been mak­ing our way through our wait­ing list so that every autis­tic per­son can get ac­cess to some kind of in­ter­ven­tion ser­vices,” she ex­plained.

Physiotherapist Dr Bianca Lutchman-Dindial shows patient Sandra Mohess the proper technique for Cervical Spondylosis exercises at Allied Family Care Ltd, Corner Cipero and Park Streets, San Fernando.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Al­lied Fam­i­ly Care Dr Adri­an Alexan­der said phys­io­ther­a­py, speech and oc­cu­pa­tion­al ther­a­py are now avail­able to chil­dren, in­clud­ing those who can­not af­ford them. 

Alexan­der said he was will­ing to part­ner with NGOs like Sup­port Autism TT. Hav­ing worked at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for over nine years, Dr Alexan­der said he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with pa­tients who could not af­ford prop­er health­care and he was com­mit­ted to of­fer­ing per­son­alised health care at Al­lied Fam­i­ly Care.

Apart from pae­di­atric care, Alexan­der said oth­er spe­cial­i­ties in­clud­ing in­ter­nal med­i­cine, stroke med­i­cine, car­di­ol­o­gy, neu­rol­o­gy, urol­o­gy and neu­rol­o­gy, nephrol­o­gy, gen­er­al surgery, ob­stet­rics and gy­nae­col­o­gy, pae­di­atrics, oph­thal­mol­o­gy, op­tom­e­try and or­thopaedics are avail­able.

Mean­while, en­docri­nol­o­gist Dr Navin­dra Per­sad, who al­so works at Al­lied Fam­i­ly Care, said since COVID more chil­dren are show­ing up with di­a­betes.

“COVID is twofold. Be­cause of COVID, we found a lot of in­ci­den­tal find­ings in terms of di­a­betes and high blood pres­sure. But what is in­ter­est­ing is COVID is ac­tu­al­ly linked to tran­sient Type 1 di­a­betes. Al­so, be­cause of COVID ill­ness and med­ica­tion used, some of them got Type 2 di­a­betes be­cause of it and we have quite a few cas­es,” Per­sad said.

He added, “Trinidad has one of the high­est rates of child­hood obe­si­ty in the world and if we use ADA guide­lines, at least 80 per cent of chil­dren over the age of 12 should be screened for di­a­betes.”

He not­ed that a lot more out­pa­tient care is need­ed.