Friday, 19 April 2013

Immunisation: Responsibilities of Early Childhood Education Settings

As a requirement of the Education Review Office (ERO), early childhood education (ECE) settings are required to keep a copy of every enrolled child’s immunisation record (Section D: Health Safety and Environment PDF (Vol 1)).  It is the professional responsibility of teachers to ensure parents are fully informed about immunisation and to respect their decisions made for their child regarding immunisation.  However, being immunised is not an enrolment prerequisite (see Responsibilities, para. 1); therefore, a centre’s staff must be aware of any children in their care who are not immunised, and realise the associated health risk this poses.  I found this information quite interesting, and wonder just how many unimmunised children attend ECE settings as the health risk involved, of being in such a social environment, is quite evident.

Another issue becoming more apparent is the transmission of viruses from teacher to child.  In my personal experience, flu vaccinations for staff are now funded by some ECE settings, to stop the spread of the flu virus.  The recent whooping cough epidemic brought to light the need for primary carers to get boosters, to ensure the virus is not being passed on to infants who have not yet received their full schedule of vaccines.  This suggests that all ECE teachers should also have boosters, to stop any potential threat of passing the virus on to infants in their care.  I believe that this particular issue will become more crucial as the Government drives to increase participation in early childhood education.


References


Education Review Office. (1998). Handbook of contractual obligations and undertakings - Early childhood services volume 1 [for services chartered or licensed under the 1998 regulations]: Section D: Health safety and environment. Retrieved from http://www.ero.govt.nz/Review-Process/For-Early-Childhood-Services-and-Nga-Kohanga-Reo/Handbook
Ministry of Health. (2011). Responsibilities. Health Ed. Retrieved from https://www.healthed.govt.nz/resource/immunisation-guidelines-early-childhood-services-and-primary-schools-%E2%80%93-english-version#immunisation11
Ministry of Health. (2013, April, 16). ‘You just shouldn’t take the risk’.  Retrieved from http://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/diseases-and-illnesses/whooping-cough/whooping-cough-babies-fight-survival-video#nixson
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1 comment:

  1. Kaz28 April 2013 at 15:45

    I have found your blog issue very interesting and thought provoking. It has brought up many ideas/issues that I hadn't really thought too much about. Your blog has made me consider teachers who work with infants - since their immune systems are still developing - whether or not their own immunisations should be considered. And also, the children within centres that are and are not immunised - what health risks are there?
    Also I began to think about the information parents/families are provided about each individual immunisation, and the readily availability and non-biased of this information. Also, this brought to mind about the media's influence on immunistaion, and how the media can be very biased in their stories/articles/reporting.
    Your blog had been very thought proving for me, and has given me more motivation to be more aware and proactive in finding information, as I believe it will be something important for me to be knowledgeable about when the time comes that I have children.

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