I would say not much in my little humble opinion.
Minn dept of health is the state agency in charge of all Minnesotans health issues including autism. They get funded through US. HHS agencies such as HRSA block grants and others for their child and maternal health dept. They also get funded to provide resources for all health conditions for all Minnesotans with any health problems including Autism. It is the Assurance part of their charge which is;
1. Assessment – data collection or surveillance of health conditions and diseases. For autism, it is called ADDM (Autism Developmental Disability Monitoring). We don’t have that or even applied the grant from CDC (Centers for Disease Control), despite the edge for Somali and autism we could have used to our benefit. Autism is high in American children born in Minnesota to Somali parents – it does not take a rocket scientist to see that and that would have given us a good edge in the ADDM application. But, MDH is the agency that does the least and puts forth a minimum effort for autism under this administration and did NOT even apply for this opportunity. I honestly just don’t know why.
2. Assurance – assure and inform the public about what services and resources available for autism, i.e therapies, waivers, etc. They have no plan and seem to be clueless on how to do this.
3. Policy – assuring people and businesses follow whatever health state and/or federal health policies, i.e. no smoking in xyz areas, enforcing health regulations in businesses, etc. This mostly does not pertain to autism. I guess they do OK here.
Under. Dr. Ehlinger, the commissioner appointed by Governor Dayton, things got worse for autism The only time Dr. Ehlinger ever came out for autism and addressed it was during the measles outbreak in 2011 where he gave a speech claiming that we (Somali autism families) had his attention along with the governor and autism would be Addressed. We are still waiting for his attention. He even gave a nice speech that almost sounded caring and real.
There are two things we can do as autism families;
1. Just roll with the flow and let Dr. Ehlinger ignore autism as the health crises it is and hope the next governor appoints a better public health person.
2. Or we can complain, write, blog and complain again to his boss, Governor Dayton and Minn legislators by asking what needs to be done.
I think we should take the 2nd option because autism is still here and our children still have it.
Thanks.
Idil – Autism Mom