Hamilton Public Health says seamless vaccine registry will reduce school suspensions
Published October 21, 2019 at 7:02 pm
Hamilton Public Health appealed to the city’s Board of Health to endorse a plan that would improve vaccine reporting and decrease the number of student suspensions in the city.
Hamilton Public Health appealed to the city’s Board of Health to endorse a plan that would improve vaccine reporting and decrease the number of student suspensions in the city.
Last year, 3,400 students in Hamilton were suspended from school as they were found to not be compliant under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA), a public health report notes.
Much of these suspensions and the confusion around them could likely be avoided with the implementation of a seamless information system that health-care providers and public health have access to.
A Seamless Immunization Registry would enable health-care providers to directly input immunization information at the time a vaccine is administered and that information would be readily available to public health.
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Under the ISPA, students in Ontario schools and in registered child-care centres must provide a record that they have been immunized according to the Ontario immunization schedule. If there is no up-to-date record, a student could face a lengthy suspension.
In accordance with ISPA, a suspension can be enacted for up to 20 school days and can be renewed.
As it stands today, the onus is on parents to report their child’s immunization history to public health, said Michelle Baird, the director of Epidemiology, Wellness and Communicable Disease
Control Division of Public Health Services, in an interview with inthehammer.
Baird said when a child is immunized, many parents “don’t realize that record doesn’t translate to public health.”
In 2018-2019, following an assessment of vaccine records of over 70,000 students in Hamilton, approximately 16,000 students were notified that they did not have an up-to-date record on file with public health and they faced potential suspension.
The notification comes in the form of a letter sent to parents five weeks before the suspension day. The letter contains detailed information about ISPA, their child’s specific information on what vaccines are needed to meet ISPA requirements, details about exemptions and how to access vaccines and report them to public health.
“A good number of suspension notices is because we don’t have the record,” Baird said. So, ultimately, the majority of students who are notified will have their records updated or will undergo the necessary steps to be in compliance with ISPA before the suspension comes into effect.
Public health also runs a number of ‘suspension’ clinics, Baird said, for those students whose immunizations need to be updated to avoid the suspension. Parents are also advised of the other clinic throughout the city where shots can be updated, like walk-in clinics.
In some cases, for students who are unable to receive vaccines for medical reasons (e.g. allergies, immunocompromised, etc.), a health-care provider must complete a medical exemption form and provide it to public health in order to avoid suspension or return to school.
To obtain a non-medical exemption, under the TSPA, parents must attend a Public Health education session as well as complete a “statement of conscience or religious belief” form and have it notarized by an authorized notary public.
During a presentation last week to the board of health, representatives from public health noted that for parents of unvaccinated children who seek an exemption for religious or personal beliefs, it can “be very hard to change their minds.
“We just want to make sure they have all the information they need to make a decision.”
In the end, in order to sort everything out, Baird said, there can be a lot of back and forth between parents, doctors and public health and that a centralized information system would improve efficiencies in communication.
Baird noted that a “very small number” of suspended students is out for the entire suspension period.
Councillor John-Paul Danko, who noted he had school-aged children, asked whether or not unvaccinated children in the system are tracked by public health and what happens in the event of an outbreak.
Baird confirmed that they are tracked and they are removed from school in the event of an outbreak until the risk has passed.
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