Parents hunt for childcare centres with strict vaccination policies

Sensible parents are shopping around for daycare centres more carefully than ever as anti-vaxxers continue to put the lives of other people’s children at risk by helping to spread potentially deadly diseases, but their efforts aren’t being helped by legislation.

CAUTIOUS parents are choosing their children’s day care centres based on whether they have strong immunisation policies as health experts stress the importance of vaccinations.

The Courier-Mail spoke with parents who hunt around to find a child care centre that only accepts vaccinated children, while some turn to family day care for more reassurance on who their kids are spending time with.

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Queensland child care centres have the option against enrolling an unvaccinated child but there is no mandatory requirement.

Parents are choosing day care centres based on their immunisation policies. Pic: Stock

Early Childhood Australia chief executive officer Samantha Page said child care centres “just about” universally supported immunisation, but some do not want to exclude children and jeopardise early learning opportunities.

“There are different perspectives,” she said. “Some services say ‘no’ for the safety of the other children and the staff at the centre. They do not want children who haven’t been vaccinated.

“Other services say ‘we don’t want to exclude children who we think should be here, but that doesn’t mean we don’t support vaccination’.”

Mum-of-three Bianca Masters feels reassured knowing her childcare centre is strict about immunisation.

Her eldest son Mackay got the chickenpox when he was four-months-old, he then had rubella not long afterwards and caught a stomach virus at daycare and spent a week in hospital before being diagnosed with low immunity.

Bianca Masters’ kids go to a childcare centre that is vaccination only. Picture AAPImage/ David Clark

She said her kids being with other vaccinated children was “incredibly important” as her middle child Jackson had also battled illnesses after being born with a hole in his heart.

“It was really hard to constantly see him in and out of hospital. I hated going to public places like playgrounds and play centres with him,” she said.

“I was so thankful that his daycare became really strict with their no-vax policy, so it made me feel a bit better about him going to daycare.”

She said she had sat down and spoke with the childcare director about her concerns and would have moved her sons to a different daycare if they had not adopted new policies.

Another mother said she changed her youngest from a day care centre to family day care and said he got sick much less.

“I didn’t find it too hard to find family daycare that was vaccination only,” she said.

“I absolutely checked before even inquiring. If a company’s page was vague or didn’t state that the child needs to be vaccinated I didn’t even consider them.”

Parents said they would like to see immunisations become a mandatory requirement for all child care centre enrolments in Queensland, similar to laws in NSW and Victoria.

To be eligible for the full Family Tax Benefit Part A, under No Jab, No Play legislation, children need to be vaccinated under the National Immunisation Program schedule or have an approved exemption.

Generic Brave little girl receiving injection. Vaccination story. From Thinkstock.

Victoria and NSW are the only states that prohibit enrolment of unvaccinated children in early childhood education and care services, unless they have a medical exemption.

University of Queensland senior lecturer in public health Dr Susan Vlack does not believe immunisation will become a mandatory requirement for early learning enrolment in Queensland.

“Where you’ve got parents who want to have all vaccinated kids, it might be in their [child care centres] interest to do so,” she said.

“We do know there are specific areas where there is a lower rate of vaccination, so maybe child care policies vary depending on clientele.”

Social researcher Geoff Brailey from McCrindle said parents had increasingly higher expectations of trust in organisations and had more access to information.

“It is understandable for parents to want to find out if that centre is a place where there are parents with children who aren’t vaccinated,” he said.

Queensland Health data shows that over the past decade the proportion of fully immunised children has increased.

In 2017, coverage rates for fully immunised Queensland children were 94 per cent for one-year-olds and 92 per cent of two-year-olds were vaccinated.

“Like the overwhelming majority of parents, we believe in protecting kids through vaccination because it’s the normal, safe, sensible thing to do,” a department spokeswoman said.

“Vaccination rates for Queensland kids are increasing because mums and dads believe the science which shows they are the safest, most effective way to prevent serious and sometimes life-threatening illness.

“Anti-vax nonsense isn’t a lifestyle choice — for some sick kids it could literally be the difference between life and death.”