Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Flu vaccination

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:39): (1856) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and it is in relation to vaccinations in children. I met with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia last week, who are the peak body looking after community pharmacies and who have been doing a tremendous job over the last two years in supporting the Victorian public through the pandemic. I was very pleased that—somewhat rather late, I must say—the Victorian government finally acknowledged the work of pharmacies and encouraged Victorians to be vaccinated through GPs or pharmacies and not just the state hubs. It took months for them to recognise that and talk about it publicly. I was very disappointed at the time that the Premier refused to. But nevertheless, putting that aside, the work that the community pharmacies have done in really assisting communities in understanding the benefits of vaccination and assisting them with advice on how to manage COVID and other health-related issues is well known, and they have been around for decades.

But what we have got is a bit of an anomaly with children being able to be vaccinated by a community pharmacist. Pharmacist immunisers undertake a very significant training program that is approved by the Department of Health, and they administer a range of vaccines that include all vaccines funded under the national immunisation program as well as a number of travel-related vaccines. However, what they can do currently with children is limited. They can give COVID vaccines to children under the age of nine, but they cannot give the flu vaccine to children under the age of nine. So there is a real inconsistency here, with the department allowing community pharmacists to provide children with the COVID vaccine but not the flu vaccine. That does not make any sense. I note that in Queensland they have approved pharmacists administering the flu vax to children five years and above. It comes under their emergency order and will be in place until 7 June 2022. As we are constantly told of the importance of masks for children and getting vaccinated, it makes no sense to me that this government is inconsistent on this very issue. So the action I seek is for the minister to urgently meet with the pharmacy guild and discuss this issue to explain to them why community pharmacists are unable to vaccinate children with the flu vaccination when they are allowed to vaccinate these same children with COVID vaccinations.