The par­ents of a Stan­dard Five stu­dent in Gas­par­il­lo, who was vac­ci­nat­ed by pub­lic health work­ers against their wish­es, have threat­ened to sue the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA). 

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to SWRHA chief ex­ec­u­tive Bri­an Ar­mour, last Thurs­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the par­ents, who can­not be named to pro­tect the iden­ti­ty of the 11-year-old child, claimed that the in­ci­dent amount­ed to as­sault and bat­tery. 

“It is trite law that the ad­min­is­ter­ing of vac­cines or any oth­er med­ical treat­ment against the ex­press wish­es of the pa­tient, or in the case of a mi­nor their le­gal par­ent or guardian, is neg­li­gent,” at­tor­ney Ja­son Jones stat­ed in the let­ter. 

Ac­cord­ing to Jones, on Oc­to­ber 8, the par­ents sub­mit­ted a form in which they with­held con­sent for the ad­min­is­ter­ing of vac­cines and med­ical ser­vices for their daugh­ter. 

The fol­low­ing day, the staff at the Gas­par­il­lo Health Cen­tre vis­it­ed the school to do vac­ci­na­tions for hu­man pa­pil­lo­mavirus (HPV) and mis­tak­en­ly in­clud­ed the child. 

The par­ents on­ly found out af­ter the child in­formed them lat­er that evening and pre­sent­ed her im­mu­niza­tion record. 

Jones claimed that the prin­ci­pal of the school ad­mit­ted that the con­sent forms were hand­ed over to the med­ical staff but no teach­ers or school ad­min­is­tra­tors were present dur­ing the vac­ci­na­tion ex­er­cise. 

“In any event, it was in­cum­bent on the med­ical staff ad­min­is­ter­ing the vac­cine to have con­firmed con­sent be­fore ad­min­is­ter­ing the vac­cine, which was not done,” Jones said. 

In the let­ter, Jones claimed that the SWRHA staff were neg­li­gent in per­form­ing their du­ties. 

“It goes with­out say­ing that a mi­nor child ought to be able to have trust and con­fi­dence that their school, and any agents of the state who en­ter in­to their school, will be act­ing in their best in­ter­est. The par­ents ought to be able to have the same con­fi­dence,” Jones said. 

Jones gave the SWRHA un­til Oc­to­ber 31 to re­spond to the let­ter be­fore he files the law­suit against it. The SWRHA had not replied, up to late yes­ter­day.

The par­ents are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Matthew Gayle.