Second autism patient stranded Ottawa Hospital

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When Vicki Monty read about the plight of 26-year-old Jean-Marc Lang, a severely autistic man who has been an in-patient at The Ottawa Hospital since February, it was as if she was reading about her own family.

Monty’s song Joshua, 23, has been a patient at the hospital’s General campus since July 2019, when Vicki and her husband, Jean-François, called 911 because of his violent behaviour. Joshua, six-foot-three and 220 pounds when he went into hospital, also has autism and an intellectual delay.

Cheerful and happy as a youngster, when he liked to be in nature and with his family, Joshua’s behaviour deteriorated at around age 16, when he grew aggressive and began to scream and throw fits. This is his second stay in hospital and his parents say it’s impossible for him to come home until his behaviour becomes more manageable.

But the problem is that in hospital there are no programs to help him manage his outbursts, only medication, something the family wants to avoid. Joshua was treated with anti-psychotic drugs during his first hospital stay in 2017. His parents did their best to wean him off them after his release.

He’s just staying there like a vegetable,” Jean-François said. “He can’t go out of his room because sometimes, if he’s out of his room, he gets excited and they have to call security to push him back in. Basically, he’s lying in his bed all day because they don’t want him roaming the halls. He doesn’t get any exercise, and, obviously since COVID hit, he hasn’t even seen the sunshine.

“He’s regressing. He started at a very low point when he entered the hospital and now he’s much worse. The road to bring him back is going to be very, very difficult.”

The stories of the Langs and the Montys are familiar to Brenda Reisch, executive director of the charity Children at Risk, which provides support and advocates for families with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Reisch’s son, Ian, spent more than two years in The Ottawa Hospital while he waited to be placed in a group home in 2017.

“It’s a political standoff,” Reisch said. “The Ottawa Hospital is saying we’re not being given funding for these patients and they should be over at The Royal for treatment. And The Royal is saying we’re not being given funding to have beds for treating them. And these people are caught in the middle.”