TAIT: People living with disability receive mixed message from province

And you thought we were getting mixed messages from the Trump travelling show.

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During a local television supper-hour newscast — yes, I proudly still subscribe to appointment television — two stories made me scratch, yet again, my balding head.

The first story shames the provincial government.

Three weeks ago, educational assistants and other important provincial employees went out on strike.

The bottom line for me is this: countless kids with disabilities are not going to school because people help them — sometimes with the most personal bodily functions — while learning, while being with their friends, while going to school.

The TV news story was about a lawsuit. A few parents of kids with disability are taking the province to court, as they should, for not providing their children with education assistants.

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It’s a good thing this is Sunday: I will refrain from calling the minister of education what I really think of her.

For them to drag this thing out is wrong and sends a most unwelcome message to Alberta students with disabilities, and their parents.

Another news story mere minutes later celebrated the two-day Corus Radiothon. An incredible $1.9 million was raised to help kids with medical needs and injuries that cause mobility challenges and other issues.

They help kids return to school.

But … what happens, say, to a Grade 3 student who goes out for a glorious bike ride, has a crash and sustains a brain injury?

Funds were raised this week for top doctors, surgeons, nurses and everyone else who is an integral part of Stollery Children’s Hospital. And let’s not forget the state-of-the-art equipment which makes rehabilitation a little less mundane, but so much more effective.

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So: after the world’s best care, our new friend can — and this is needed to be proudly celebrated — use a wheelchair for school.

Let’s go, right?

But based on the previous story about the provincial worker’s strike, a question must be asked, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

Are sick and hurt kids who are helped by charitable dollars from private citizens at the risk of being failed by the public purse?

In other words, despite how far sick and hurt kids and their parents fight to become the very best they can be, thanks to donors, could they be stopped right in their tire tracks?

Education is so very important for every child. For kids, no matter what their disability is or what their comprehension is, education is essential.

It is beyond my comprehension such a core fundamental philosophy needs to be drilled into a stoic bureaucracy that, one would think, would support in every possible way turning young Albertans with disabilities into taxpayers. Not tax recipients.

Mixed messages?

You tell me.

camtait58@gmail.com

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