Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The school vaccine programme is of huge concern. The 2021 programme has been suspended in community healthcare organisation, CHO, 8 and the midlands areas of Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath. It is not happening. It was fully suspended from 9 November and never really got started this year. It would normally kick off in this semester and carry through into next year for the 2021 programme. Children in both primary and secondary school have not been vaccinated as normal since then, even though the front-line community nurses are there and are available to proceed with the programme, which is puzzling. My information is that there is a plentiful supply of the vaccine for all the required immunisations for schoolgoing children, both in primary and secondary school. It is widely accepted that these vaccination programmes are essential to prevent measles, mumps and rubella along with cervical cancer and other medical conditions that arise in later life.

We all understand that earlier in the year the health services had to do extraordinary things and it will have been necessary to suspend the immunisation programme for a period of time during that first lockdown in March, April and May, in particular. Public health nurses were redeployed to carry out other Covid-19 related work and were flexible, and we commend them on that. However, the situation is now different and has changed. My information from the ground is that there are dozens of community Covid-19 testers who are available and trained up to take Covid-19 swabs. There is no need, therefore, to hold back public health work that would normally carry on. The school vaccination programme is proceeding apace in other regions I have checked in, such as Carlow and Kilkenny, for example. Why is the same not happening in Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath, which are included in the HSE designated area of CHO 8? This is an essential front-line service that is preventative in nature. It can be operational and available very quickly.

I often stand up here and I will complain about shortcomings in the health services and we all want reforms in this area, but there are some good things about the health services. These school vaccination programmes have been one of those good things down through the decades. It is a huge body of work that is undertaken by the front-line staff, mainly by the community health nurses. A huge volume of vaccinations are carried out every year with the co-operation of the schools. It is one of the things that is done well and effectively in the health service. My understanding from schools is that they want to have it done. They sincerely wish to have the children available for that and parents who I have spoken to also say they are concerned about the suspension of the programme.

It is supposed to be recategorised by the HSE. The HSE gave a reply of sorts to a query of mine about it being recategorised from what it called priority 1 to priority 2. It needs to be priority 1. We need to keep essential health services going during this pandemic as we move out of level 5 and back to, it is hoped, level 3 or level 2. What can be done about this to get it moving again?

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