Calls for rules sending sick kids home to stop spread of diseases

A MESS of self-decided rules and desperate parents hiding their kids’ sickness is causing childcare centres to become hot spots for spread of illnesses.

Five-year-old Winnie, Eddie, two, and Jack, four, at Surry Hills Early Learning Centre, which has strict rules for disease control. Picture: Richard Dobson

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Childcare centres making up their own inadequate health rules and desperate parents disguising their kids’ illnesses are combining to making the centres hothouses for the spread of diseases in children.

Experts have called for mandatory, consistent procedures governing the attendance of sick children at childcare and forcing home children who become sick into the responsibility of their parents.

Rules governing the attendance of sick children in the State’s 5398 childcare centres vary widely.

They are “interpretations” of voluntary guidelines issued by NSW Health and National Health and Medical Research Council.

Eddie, Winnie and Jack at childcare, where they are taught how to blow their noses. Picture: Richard Dobson

In some, if a child is sick a parent is rung and told to come and collect them immediately while others will keep the child for the remainder of the day.

Some centres will provide off-the-shelf pain relief for children while others refuse to give anything but prescribed medications.

“Childcare centres are hothouses for spreading viral and bacterial infection,” Health Minister

Brad Hazzard told The Saturday Telegraph.

He said part of the problem was desperate parents masking the children’s symptoms with Nurofen or Panadol and dropping them off at childcare as they had to work.

The Australian Childcare Alliance wants the mish-mash of self-created rules to be abandoned.

“When kids get their first infection they have a double problem.”

Its NSW treasurer Karthika Viknarasah backs mandatory exclusion periods for kids with infectious diseases as well as enforcing strict hygiene procedures.

At Ms Viknarasah’s Lidcombe centre has a policy of calling parents to collect their children if they are sick and will call an ambulance for a feverish child if their parents don’t collect them within an hour of being notified they are unwell.

She said some parents attempt to game the system by delaying picking up their children so they can stay at work or ply the child with medication so they seem well when dropped off.

If a child is ill the best place for them to be is at home with mum or dad …. to stop the spread of infection for children, parents and staff especially as we have pregnant mums coming through the centre so it’s about keeping everyone safe,” she told the Saturday Telegraph.

“At our centre we don’t accept Nurofen or Panadol.

Childcare worker Hannah McKeller shows Jack and Winnie how to control a sneeze so germs don’t spread. Picture: Richard Dobson

“If a child needs it than they’re not well enough to be at the centre because sometimes it will mask the symptoms and you don’t know how ill the child is.”

NSW childcare centres currently “interpret”recommended guidelines from the National Health and Medical Research Council that date back to 2013 and cover things like hand washing and nappy changing, while NSW Health provides guidance on recommended exclusion periods for common childhood diseases.

A NHMRC spokeswoman said there were no plans to make the guidelines mandatory.

University of Sydney childhood infectious disease expert Robert Booy said childcare centres were a breeding ground for disease as children are not only obliviously to spreading disease they are also more infectious than adults.

“Parents convince themselves that it’s okay for their sick child to go to kindy or preschool.”

“When kids get their first infection they have a double problem. They have a really high virus load so they can spread a lot of disease and then they’re much more likely to kiss and cuddle without paying attention or washing their hands,” Prof Booy said.

Prof Booy said parents and childcare centres needed to take advantage of influenza vaccination so children and their families are spared from the flu.

Mr Hazzard said childcare centres were “hothouses for spreading viral and bacterial infections” but acknowledged the pressure on families to work.

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“There are guidelines in place for parents but with the pressures of two-working parent families and mortgages sometimes parents convince themselves that it’s okay for their sick child to go to kindy or preschool — it really isn’t,” he said.

Susie Wilson’s Surry Hills Early Learning Centre in inner Sydney has firm protocols for parents to abide by if their child falls ill after they are dropped off at the centre.

This includes parents being notified straight away and asked to come and collect their child immediately.

She said the parents are very co-operative.

“And we have strict guidelines here like teaching the children how to blow their nose so they must put the tissue into a bin with a pedal (so they use their foot to open it) and then wash their hands straight away,” she said.

“It is important to teach them.”