Patricia Edwards

I oppose this bill as a pediatrician in NH as it will put undue stress on parents to get their children immunized through school programs for the flu vaccine in particular. Many parents work full days and pick their children up from after school programs as late as 5:30-6pm. They then have to get their children home and get dinner and get them ready for the next day and to bed. That is why vaccine clinics are traditionally scheduled during the school day to make it convenient for parents to have their children vaccinated in a timely manner. If vaccine clinics are held outside of school hours this puts additional burden on the parents to find the extra time to take their children to the clinic which was designed to help parents out in their desire to get their children vaccinated in the first place. Also most parents who use this service are working full time and may have jobs that do not allow them to leave to go to a school clinic to accompany their child for the vaccine. There is already a system in place to allow the parent to sign a permission form stating they would like their child vaccinated. This system has worked since I was a child in elementary school in the state of NH 63 years ago. I received many vaccines this way and did fine with no parent present. The clinics were held during our school day and often we were braver by being in the clinics with our friends. Basically this bill is just another way to discourage parents who want vaccines to have easy access to them. This is also very helpful to pediatricians and family docs as the volume of children getting vaccinated is large and this takes some stress off our offices also. Please table this bill and let's not put more stress on already busy NH families. Also remember that these clinics are totally voluntary and not required. This system works well and isn't broken so there is no need to change it. I urge you to vote no.