(Canada) PEI: 6 year wait for special needs diagnosis

Oct 27, 2017, (Canada) CBC: P.E.I. to hire private psychologists to assess students as wait list swells http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-school-psychologist-assessment-wait-times-1.4374891 The P.E.I. government says it's come up with a budget of $200,000 to pay for private psychologists to diagnose learning disabilities among Island students. An agreement was reached this week between the Department of Education and the Public Schools Branch to apply unspent funds that were budgeted to pay for staff psychologists within the school system. The province has been unable to fill some of those positions. The funding is meant to cover to the end of the current fiscal year — March 31, 2018. … The province has been operating for years without its full complement of school psychologists, while the waiting list of children needing to be diagnosed with a learning disability has continued to grow. There are now 435 children on the list, according to government, and the current waiting period is 3.25 years. But a number of Island families say they've been waiting much longer than that. Bob Boyle said one of his children has been on the waiting list for six years…