By ALESHA CAPONE
A LARGE rally last Thursday called on the State Government to improve access to the Children’s Allied Health Service at Sunshine Hospital.
Earlier this year, the Opposition spokesperson for Children and Young Adults Jenny Mikakos revealed the Children’s Allied Health Service had stopped accepting multi-disciplinary assessment referrals for kindergarten children with disabilities who will start school in 2014.
Ms Mikakos showed Parliament a copy of a letter from Western Health, sent to kindergartens and other early childhood services across the West, to advise them that CAHS would stop taking referrals due to increased demand.
At Thursday’s rally in Hampshire Rd, families, early childhood educators and Ms Mikakos attended alongside Labor MPs Natalie Hutchins, Marlene Kairouz, Cesar Melham, Don Nardella and Khalil Eideh – who cover the Western electorates affected by the CAHS decision.
Ms Mikakos said hundreds of people have signed a petition demanding the State Government reinstate CAHS services at Sunshine Hospital.
“Since the CAHS stopped taking referrals, children and their parents have been forced to pay for expensive $1500 privately provided assessments or travel out of the area – often to places like Melton Health which already have a significant waiting list,” she said.
“Labor has raised this issue several times with the Children’s Minister Wendy Lovell and the Health Minister, David Davis, but nothing has come of it – the service is still not taking any more referrals.”
However, a State Government spokesperson said it was “disappointing, but not surprising, that the Opposition is continuing to cause stress to families in the Western suburbs in a bid to grab headlines”.
“The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is working with Western Health and has come to an arrangement that will see the service ensuring that all children beginning school in 2014 who need an assessment will receive one,” the spokesperson said.
