St. Albert parents have mixed reactions over new provincial legislation that would give health officials better access to personal information of students and their parents.
Bill 28, the Public Health Amendment Act, introduced in the legislature last Monday, would allow health officials to collect enrolment information in order to identify students with incomplete immunization records.
The amendments are intended to help better protect Albertans, especially children, from vaccine preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough, as well as raise immunization rates.
The new legislation would enable public health officials to contact parents of students with missing immunization information or who are not fully immunized in order to request immunization information, provide information on the benefits of immunization if needed and explain the current policy that requires unimmunized students to stay home in the event of an outbreak.
Currently when an outbreak occurs in a school, health professionals must track down missing immunization records. This slows the ability to respond to the outbreak and protect the students.
Allowing public health officials to match enrolment information to immunization records will hasten the response to vaccine-preventable outbreaks in schools.
The province is currently missing immunization records for 15 to 20 per cent of school-aged children. The province also does not meet the national immunization standards.
While some residents thought the move was a good way of disseminating public health information and making it easier for public officials to prevent outbreaks, others like Derrick Meyer said he didn’t think the calls would impact immunization rates.
“Unless the province has some sort of feedback that states the reasons for the low vaccination are due to parents that don't know about vaccinations then this is futile,” he wrote on Facebook. “The vast majority of people that I have come across that don't vaccinate do so because they believe it is bad in some way.”
He said if the government truly wanted to increase vaccination rates it would impose consequences.
Parents who choose not to immunize their children will be asked to provide a letter indicating a medical exemption has been granted or sign a form indicating they choose not to immunize their child.
Christine Swan Anderson thought it was important to educate as much as possible.
“Disease outbreaks can only be avoided when vaccination rates are high,” she wrote on Facebook. “The best way to improve vaccination rates is through education, which Bill 28 will help with.”
Provincial immunization data shows a high coverage rate of 92.87 for the capital health region
In 2015, St. Albert had higher vaccination rates than the provincial average for nearly all immunization types, the only exception being the first dose of Meningococcal Conjugate, which is supposed to be received by age two.
