The Story of Autism: Part II

I am currently in Family Medicine posting where we are taught to emphasize on the psychosocial aspects of medicine. It means looking at a patient beyond the disease itself, treating humans and not just the disease. One of the important aspects to consider in psychosocial is finance. It reminds me of my previous post ‘The Story of Autism’. A few days ago, I have been introduced to an autism consultancy firm, simply called ‘Autism Consultancy’. The founder, Ms Charlene Samuel happens to read my post about autism and we came in contact through email. She informed me that autism is considered a ‘rich man’s disease’ not because the disease preselect among the rich like diabetes or hypertension, but because only the rich could afford the expensive fees charged for autism therapy.

I was saddened to know that most children go untreated once diagnosed simply because treatment is just too expensive. Although there are national centres for autism, sometimes there are just too many admissions in a year that they had to select the ones who really could not afford treatment. However, those who deemed that they could afford private therapy, doesn’t mean that they are rich. Can you imagine, the best centres in Malaysia can charge anything from RM 6,000 to RM10, 000 a month? As I have stated in ‘The Story of Autism’, these kids deserve to lead a normal life and early intervention is the most crucial part. Hence, Ms Charlene told me that her firm is targeting families that are not able to afford the expensive therapy fees that most centres demand. They strive to keep costs that an average Malaysian family can afford without compromising the quality of therapy, training and programming.

An interesting thing about the firm is that it empowers parents to teach and nurture their child, so that they would not be fully dependent on the therapists to teach and communicate with their child. I am just sharing this information for those who has a child with autism and looking for an affordable private autism consultancy firm, because I do believe that every child deserves to live a normal life and hence for those affected with autism, therapy should be accessible no matter what their financial background is. For more information, you can visit www.projecthope4autism.com, or you can even directly contact her at +012 2852007, or through email at charlenemariesa@gmail.com.

Autism Consultancy official website