Mother's cry for help answered

By AINSLEY THOMSON

Waikato mother Louise Bewsher was so desperate to stop her two autistic toddlers screaming she felt like taping their mouths shut.

"I wasn't coping. It was awful. I was crying and I felt like yelling at the boys."

With nowhere else to turn, she made a plea in a local newspaper, asking anyone with spare time to help her look after her sons Ben and Jamie, who both suffer from autism spectrum disorder - a developmental disability affecting social and communication skills.

More than 17,500 New Zealanders suffer from the condition.

Ben, who turns 3 next week, and Jamie, who is nearly 2, cannot talk or express themselves and require constant supervision and stimulation.

Mrs Bewsher said each child needs one-on-one attention, but with her husband, Owen, working fulltime that was not possible.

Mrs Bewsher was receiving help from the Government through a fortnightly disability payment of $70 for each child, and 15 days a year of respite care.

But she said it was not enough. So she rang the local newspaper, the Cambridge Edition and told it about her situation.

In its article, Mrs Bewsher pleaded: "There must be people in the community here that perhaps have got some spare time and are able-bodied to maybe help when I'm not coping." The Bewshers also asked for funding to build a fence around their house to stop the children running on the road.

The article worked. The morning it appeared, a local hardware shop rang to donate timber to build the fence.

And eight women have volunteered to help look after the boys.

The number of carer-support days has also since been increased to 45 for Ben and 40 for Jamie.

The Ministry of Health's chief adviser on disability services, Lester Mundell, said the increases were made following recommendations from a consultant psychiatrist at the Waikato Child Development Centre, Autism New Zealand and the family's GP.

The increase was in response to the needs of both the children and the parents and is more than the normal recommendation, he said.

Mrs Bewsher said she was ecstatic to have the increase in respite care days, but when she looks at the calendar and sees them running out, she is terrified.

"You can imagine what it's like when I'm on my own. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Autism New Zealand chief executive Maree Whitworth said the Bewshers should not have had to fight for help.

She said people with autistic children are entitled to adequate Government help and where there is need it is normally given.

Autistic pre-schoolers require 24-hour care, making it hard for parents, Ms Whitworth said.

"A lot of them are runners, toileting is an issue, eating can be an issue. It is an incredibly stressful time for parents."

* The plight of parents with autistic children made national headlines in 1997 when Janine Albury-Thompson killed her autistic and often violent 17-year-old daughter, Casey.

She served part of her four-year prison sentence and spoke out this year against the continuing lack of help for parents.