THE New England has one of the highest child immunisation rates in the country but local childcarers and medical professionals have still welcomed the government’s “no-jab, no-pay” policy.
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Parents who are “conscientious objectors” to immunisations would no longer receive payments of up to $15,000 per child from January 1 next year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Sunday. Children in our region are fully immunised at a rate
consistently over 90 per cent with the recommended vaccinations, including for whooping cough, polio and tetanus.
Though Tamworth childcare staff suspect the cuts to childcare and family tax benefits for unimmunised children will not impact many local families, GPs said any move to improve immunisation rates was essential.
St Michael’s Preschool director Rebecca Bailey welcomed the change but doubted the threat of payment cuts would impact their centre, as all of the children who attended were vaccinated, except for one due to an allergy.
The government has said people who have medical reasons for not vaccinating will still receive government payments.
Mrs Bailey said immunisation was vital and this step from the government might be the measure some people needed to get their children vaccinated.
“It is a way that we protect the rest of our community, by our children being immunised,” she said.
She said if children weren’t vaccinated, they could be isolated if a bout of chicken pox broke out, but with the disease becoming contagious before spots appear, it could be too late.
Tamworth GP Jenny May said she welcomed any policy initiative that would raise the rates of immunity in the region.
“GPs believe in evidence-based medicine,” Dr May said.
“Vaccinations are a key and important cornerstone of proctecting, particularly, children, against preventable
diseases.”
She said there was a “double benefit” to vaccinations, as they helped individual children but also other children through “herd immunity”.
She said the New England’s high rate of immunisation was a testament to the co-operation of multiple health services.
Australia maintains a high immunisation rate, but in the past 10 years the number of children left unimmunised because their parents were conscientious objectors, rose to 39,000, an increase of 24,000. Mr Abbot said the choice to not immunise children was not backed up by medical research and posed health risks to other young children and the broader community.
