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GTU defends schools that disallow HPV vaccination of students -says decision linked to lack of parental consent
The Guyana Teachers’ Union [GTU] on Thursday rubbished allegations that public school teachers have been undermining the Ministry of Public Health’s Human Papillomavirus [HPV] vaccination campaign. There have been reports, which suggest that the teachers have been dissuading students from taking the vaccine and have even cited some adverse effects associated with the vaccine.
However, based on reports out of the Public Health Ministry, the vaccine is intended to help safeguard the targeted population from HPV, which is known to cause cervical cancer.
Cervical cancer has been listed among the leading cancer deaths in this country, thus the Ministry’s desire to bolster its fight against cancer with the vaccination campaign.
But yesterday, GTU President Mark Lyte made it clear that based on the reports filtered to the union, teachers have not been preventing the children within their charge from receiving the vaccine, but rather, they have been prohibiting the process if the consent of parents is not forthcoming.
“All our teachers have been doing is ensuring that the health officials have permission from the parents before they go ahead and vaccinate these children. What we have is the Ministry agreeing that the HPV vaccine can be given to the children, but since the teachers are not the guardian of the children, they cannot give the go-ahead,” Lyte shared.
In fact, he added that teachers are particularly cautious, since “we are not aware as to whether a child had a vaccine of that similar nature. So at many schools where the head teachers and teachers are alert, they are actually saying to the nurses, whose only intention is to administer a certain number of vaccines and leave, which we would like you to have permission from the parents that they are agreeing to have their child take that vaccine”.
GTU President, Mark Lyte
Taking this approach has been premised on the fact that a number of children who were administered the vaccine developed adverse reaction.
“There are cases where the children, after receiving the vaccine, end up reporting ill…some of them develop fever and other side effects, and the school is not in a position to indicate what side effects there might be,” said Lyte.
He revealed that based on the reports from several of the union’s membership, some of the schools have not been furnished with consent forms to be sent home to the parents on which they can state their objection to the vaccination process.
But according to Lyte, this was not the situation that occurred at all schools targeted for the vaccination campaign.
“These health workers, we understand, have just been turning up at the schools, and [they] inform that they are there to administer the vaccine and they expect the schools to comply…but what we are saying is that there must be consent coming from the parents first,” Lyte reiterated.
He continued, “We cannot allow them to do as they please, because we only have custody of the children for six hours a day, and the parents must be the ones to give the permission. All the teachers at some schools are saying is let us do the consent forms, send it to the parents and once they agree to have their children vaccinated, the schools will have no issue allowing that,” said Lyte.
“We have had a number of complaints that the schools are not allowing the children to be vaccinated, but all we are saying is, we can’t allow that unless the parents give consent,” the GTU President stressed.
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