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Story Archives: Webber: Let state administer flu shots


Webber: Let state administer flu shots
by Scott Rogers - posted Thursday, October 8th, 2009 @ 9:11 amE-mail Story E-mail Story | Print Story Print Story 
Ouachita Parish Schools has not decided if it will accept the swine flu vaccine from the state or how it would be administered to students.

Ken Slusher, safety and construction coordinator at Ouachita Parish Schools, advised the school board Tuesday that Department of Health and Hospital officials wanted to know what assistance the school board needed regarding swine flu immunization.

Louisiana could get its first round of swine flu vaccine this week, which would be distributed to pediatricians throughout the state.

DHH officials have said the first round of swine flu vaccine would be used to inoculate children ages 2-5.

"If we were to give the shots, I told them (DHH) we would definitely need help, and we would need help with the supplies, too, although, they have asked if we would pay for the supplies," Slusher said.

Slusher talked with Wendy Cranford, director of the school board's health clinics, about the swine flu vaccination.

According to Slusher, doctors and nurse practitioners at school-based health clinics will not give their nurses the authority to give the swine flu shot.

"Our school nurses cannot give shots unless they are under doctor's orders," Slusher said. "So, the same nurses who do our school-based health clinics are the ones we got our orders from for the regular flu shots."

"If we give them, we don't want to give them in the schools," Slusher explained. "We'd prefer to give them after school or on a Saturday so a parent must bring their child, sign a consent form and then take the child home just in case they have any kind of reaction to it.

"I've had a lot of parents tell me they don't want their children to get the shot. It's not an experimental shot, but anytime something new comes out, everybody's kind of frightened of it."

Slusher said the school board must determine if it wants to accept the vaccine or simply allow local doctors and health clinics to administer the shots to the school system's students.

If the school board agrees to accept the vaccine, it will have to decide if it wants the state to provide people to administer the shot to its students, he said.

Superintendent Dr. Bob Webber said he should know more about what other superintendents in northeast Louisiana plan to do later this week following the regional superintendents meeting.

"We all have the same concerns," Webber said. "We don't want to give the shots at schools without the parents there. To be honest, we really don't even want to start doing this. If they (DHH) are going to work out the details and give the vaccine to us, then they can work out the details to give it wherever. I don't want to say we don't want it at this point, but we certainly are very conscious of the fact that we don't like to give shots at school.

Slusher added, "I assume the local doctors and health units will be giving this shot, so it's not like if we don't do it our kids won't have a means to get the shot."
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