Budget introduces national immunization program
Canadian Press
March 24, 2004 11:42 PM ET
OTTAWA — Kids in Ontario are at greater risk than those in Quebec or British Columbia for getting meningitis, a disease that can cause permanent brain damage and death.
Why? The latter two provinces provide free access to meningitis vaccine, while Ontario does not. Many parents can't afford the fee so their kids are unprotected.
That's one example of a cross-Canada problem targeted under a little-noted item in this week's budget: a $300-million national immunization program.
"What we now have in Canada is a patchwork of vaccine programs as you move from province to province," said Marie Adele Davis of the Canadian Paediatric Society.
"All children in Canada used to be sure they had their measles, mumps and rubella shot," she said. "Now you can't be sure that a child has had their meningococcal (vaccination) because, depending on which province they live in, they may or may not have had free access to the vaccine." In Ontario, the cost to parents of providing three vaccines recommended for the first year of life is between $800 and $1,000, she said.
"It's a very steep cost for the family and many cannot afford it."
Carolyn Bennett, minister of state for public health, said the goal is to standardize immunization practices in accordance with the recommendations of a federal provincial committee.
"When you have to ask parents if they want to spend $100 on a shot for their child that you know is very important it seems to go against Canadian values," said Bennett in an interview.
Currently all Canadian children are immunized for a number of diseases such as measles, mumps and diphtheria.
But many, depending on where they live, do not have free access to important new vaccines which have been recognized as effective and safe.
Those vaccines protect against meningitis, chicken pox, whooping cough and pneumococcal disease -- all serious afflictions.
There are questions about how the immunization strategy will work, partly since health is a provincial jurisdiction, and Ottawa can't impose national standards.
But public health experts are happy the problem is being recognized.
"It's not only the standardization from province to province but also to introduce some of the new vaccines which aren't covered across the board," said Robert Cushman, medical officer of health for Ottawa.
"The story we tell here is that in Ottawa the flu shot's free for everybody whereas in Quebec, across the way, they decided to do meningococcal vaccine for children.
"So one vaccine is offered in one province and one's offered in the other and we're only a river apart."