Heartless funding cut condemns Brittany
The MP for Waimakariri Clayton Cosgrove says the bleak future now facing a 12-year-old Kaiapoi resident and Addington School pupil suffering from cerebral palsy provides compelling reason why National should reverse its decision to cut special needs funding for kids.
Describing Education Minister Anne Tolley’s cuts as mean-spirited, Clayton Cosgrove said in Parliament today that Brittany Graham’s mother Julie Baker now feared Brittany would have to leave school.
“After nine years of therapy, Brittany can now stand for the first time using a ladder. Her mother tells me she believed that therapy would allow her daughter, who can’t control her bodily functions, to be toilet-trained, that she would no longer have six pairs of damp underwear to deal with every day.
“But that therapy is being taken away from Brittany and other children with critically high needs who need special therapy every day.”
Clayton Cosgrove said Julie Baker had asked him to highlight the case because of her fears for Brittany’s future.
“Julie believes Brittany has been making it thanks to therapy, but she believes that won’t continue when Anne Tolley’s cuts come into effect.
“National’s decision to cut the $2.5 million funding is wrong. It is a relatively small amount of money, but losing it will have a devastating effect on the affected children and their families.
“There’s no way Brittany’s family wanted her to become a poster girl in a campaign against the Government. All they wanted was for her to continue to succeed against huge odds. Anne Tolley has made those odds more impossible to overcome.”
Clayton Cosgrove said it was inhumane for the Government to cut off the funding lifeline for children like Brittany.
“As far as I am concerned, she IS a poster girl for human spirit and courage. National’s sees her as a number, if they think about her at all. The funding cut is shameful and heartless.”
