Issued by: National Ministry of Health
23 September 2005
The Democratic Alliance should stop creating unnecessary confusion around the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), which is critical to the survival of our children.
It cannot be true that private doctors have been banned from vaccinating babies for measles because they do not possess a dispensing licence.
Vaccines for measles are administered by an injection. No doctor or nurse requires a dispensing licence to administer such an injection. It is within their scope of practise.
Private doctors are being provided with vaccines free charge by the local government as per an arrangement between them and clinics in order to increase coverage.
If no agreement has been entered into between a doctor and clinic, there is enough stock in the private sector, where doctors could buy their own supply.
We urge doctors to continue working with the Department of Health in extending immunisation coverage to ensure that these vaccines are available to all children visiting their private health establishments.
Contact:
Spokesman for the Ministry of Health,
Sibani Mngadi
082 772 0161
22 September 2005
Private doctors banned from vaccinating babies for measles
Private doctors have been banned from vaccinating babies for measles, despite the government's own ongoing high profile campaign to persuade all parents to vaccinate their babies.
Measles vaccines are only available through government clinics. However, up until a short time ago, doctors were able to obtain vaccines from clinics to administer to their patients. Now, however, the DA has been informed that the Department of Health is no longer allowing doctors to buy these vaccines, claiming that the clinics cannot tell whether doctors have the necessary medicine dispensing license.
Instead, patients must either go directly to a clinic or to a pharmacy where a nurse is available to administer it. Few pharmacies have the resources to employ such a person.
Because a pharmacy must have a dispensing license before it can operate, the Department claims that clinics do not need to check that they have such a license, whereas they cannot be sure that a doctor has a license.
This decision places a completely unnecessary and counter-productive restriction on access to measles vaccination. Yet the Department itself has on a number of occasions stated that the only way to prevent the spread of measles is to have wide vaccination coverage.
Moreover, given the impossible burdens on public health facilities, it is nonsensical to forbid the involvement of the private sector in providing basic health care.
It is hard to believe that it is so much work for a clinic to check a doctor's dispensing license. And surely, if there is any extra inconvenience involved, it should be measured against the extra burden on clinics (which will now have to administer many more vaccines themselves) and the importance of ensuring that every child is vaccinated.