NEW regulations proposed by the State Government will require early childcare services across the state to collect and on request by the Chief Health Officer, report on the immunisation status of all students.
Introduced into Parliament this week, the government’s two staged approach will seek to strengthen immunisation records and enhance the powers of the Chief Public Health Officer to exclude a child from centres during a disease outbreak.
Health Minister Stephen Wade said the first phase of the No Jab, No Play policy aimed to improve the ability to prevent and control outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases in early childhood
services.
“This will provide our public health officers with more support to prevent and contain a dangerous outbreak,” he said.
“While these measures will help reduce cases of vaccine preventable disease and improve our ability to respond, we are continuing to consult on even tougher measures to improve overall vaccination rates.”
Under the second phase of No Jab, No Play, it is proposed childcare centres will be able to ban unvaccinated children from enrolling in services.
Mr Wade said the government would seek the views of South Australians about the proposed stage two.
“Given concerns raised by clinicians about potential detrimental impacts on children, the government will shortly release a discussion paper which will draw on input received and assessments of the impact of interstate legislation,” he said.
“We want to ensure we get our laws right.”
The State Opposition has slammed the Marshall Government’s proposed No Jab, No Play changes as “reactive” measures that “puts in place a mechanism to respond to a potential outbreak of a preventable condition”.
Earlier this week, the State Liberals voted to adjourn debate on Labor’s proposed No Jab, No Play changes.
Under Labor’s measures, children needed to be “appropriately immunised” in order to enrol or attend early childhood care services.
“We believe if a child is not immunised or not vaccinated, they should not be in a childcare centre or a kindergarten without very good medical reasons,” State Labor leader Peter Malinauskas said.
“The whole idea behind No Jab, No Play legislation is that it prevents an outbreak of a preventable disease.
“It is not there to respond to something going wrong, it is there to prevent it from occurring in the first place.”
