*Note: Please notice that what is mentioned in the article is to keep the immunization records up to date. This doesn’t necessarily mean the vaccines. The child’s exemption is included in the immunization record as well but this fact is conveniently left out. It’s a sleight of hand.
Matthew Strader
Caledon Enterprise
05/04/2010
Seventy-two students were suspended from Robert F. Hall Secondary School in Caledon East on Wednesday, April 28. The reason was outdated immunization records. And the process proved extremely confusing, and frustrating, to a number of parents.
ReDeana Montgomery was one of those parents. Her daughter was suspended even after she had contacted the Region of Peel, filled out what she thought were the required forms, and received a reference number that led her to believe her daughter would not be suspended.
But the process was not over, and the lesson for parents is to go ahead and call the Region of Peel’s immunization department.
“It was all perplexing to me,” said Montgomery. “They had sent home notices saying that (her) immunization was not up to date, and last year sent home the same notice, so we updated everything and got told she doesn’t need anything for 10 years, then this happened.”
After she was suspended, Montgomery’s daughter was told by the Robert F. Hall administration staff that she had to leave the school, and there was nothing they could do for them. When her daughter was left out in the cold, with no possibility of a ride because mom worked in Orangeville, Montgomery’s frustrations boiled over.
“The school called and said she has to get off the property. They said they can’t do anything with it, and that I would have to deal with the Region of Peel. And the Region of Peel said they have no records of any needles she has received since 1994, even though I got a reference number online on April 16,” explained an exasperated Montgomery. “It just seemed ridiculous. How could she get to Grade 10 with no records?”
Montgomery did receive additional notice that her daughter may be suspended, according to the Region of Peel’s records, and there summation of this type of incident (while considering a hypothetical because they could not speak to the specific case) was that parents may not realize the level of responsibility that is on their shoulders.
Montgomery had admittedly assumed that when their family doctor immunized her daughter in the past, those records would go to the regional offices for updating of her records.
Not so, said the Region.
“Physicians are not the ones who report the child’s immunization to Peel public health, it’s the parents responsibility,” said Dr. Monica Hau, Community Medicine Resident for the Region of Peel.
Underneath an accepted reference number is the warning, “Your reference number indicates that your record was submitted to Peel Public Health. It does not indicate that your child’s record is complete or that your child meets the legislated requirements to attend school.
“Keep your immunization record up-to-date with Peel Public Health each time your child receives immunizations.”
And here is where the problem for these 70 plus parents may have begun.
While Montgomery submitted her child’s 2009 immunization records to the Region of Peel, according to the Region’s immunization department, it did not complete her records. They contacted Montgomery again, before the cut off date, and warned of this, and were only able to rescind her daughter’s suspension when Montgomery provided, by phone, complete records from 1994.
Hau explained that miscommunication’s can also happen with different specific vaccines. While Montgomery’s daughter may have received the warning for one in 2009, and when that was updated, she was not in danger of being suspended, a ten-year-old vaccine, like a booster, could have hypothetically been the missing link in 2010.
“The parent goes online, updates to the best of their knowledge not realizing that we’re missing other doses of that vaccine,” said Hau. “Make sure to follow the Ontario immunization schedule. Based on their age, they could be due for something different.”
Hau also admitted that it is a common problem, as did Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board Trustee Frank DiCosola.
But, DiCosola said that it is something the school board hopes to address in the future and that parents need to be more vigilant.
“There can be a number of problems. Parents can have opted out at certain levels, or kids who are sick on particular days, it’s not recorded in their cards. It could be the child was away, could be new move-ins, could have come from other areas that didn’t report it, and Peel health unit doesn’t know it,” said DiCosola.
“Some parents are bringing it to the school, but our school administration is not qualified to authenticate documents, it doesn’t work that way.
“Parents were better in terms of responding, but our school administration has been working with this since February. Letters going home to parents, announcements in the school, to the kids, and principals calling down to the kids, and we still had a list of 72 kids. How much can you do?
“We don’t have a perfect system, and we’re going to try and tweak it, but we’re still going to have parents who aren’t going to comply, and then it’s oh, why is this happening?”
Peel Public Health and their Immunization Department can be contacted through the Peel Region website (www.peelregion.ca) or by calling.