BCG vaccination service curtailed by staff shortages in HSE West

HSE WEST has confirmed that staff shortages are preventing it from offering the level of neonatal BCG vaccination service in line with national policy.

“Significant efforts are being made” to deliver the programme, which protects against tuberculosis (TB), but “within the constraints of existing staffing levels”, HSE West has said.

It is also trying to maintain the existing schools BCG programme, and additional clinics have been introduced to deal with a “backlog” of neonatal and primary school vaccinations, it says.

However, in spite of “best efforts”, waiting lists are forecast for both cohorts of young children, it says.

Fine Gael councillor and Galway West election candidate Seán Kyne says that children are being “put at risk”.

“University Hospital Galway, along with Portiuncula in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and Mayo General in Castlebar, have not yet implemented the BCG vaccination programme despite the strong recommendations to do so by both the HSE’s National Immunisation Office and the World Health Organisation,” Cllr Kyne has said.

“In Galway, the standard vaccination does not occur until children are in 5th and 6th class of primary school, unless parents actively request a vaccination beforehand. Even then, children are merely placed on a waiting list to receive the vaccination,” he said.

Cllr Kyne said the issue had been raised on a number of doorsteps during his Galway West canvass, and he was aware that hospital authorities were fully prepared to implement a neonatal BCG programme, were it not for staff cutbacks and the recruitment embargo.

“Given the outbreak of TB in Cork last year, it is outrageous,” he said, calling for “immediate introduction of a BCG vaccination programme for all newborn children at UHG and for the allocation of new resources to support the wider implementation of a vaccination outreach programme”.

A pilot outreach programme had been introduced recently in Shantalla in Galway city, but it should be extended, Cllr Kyne said.

The Bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine (BCG) is recommended by the World Health Organisation for infants under 12 months old. After this age, the immunisation is not as effective with inconclusive results.

The National Immunisation Office is the HSE-funded body which promotes and informs the public in Ireland on immunisation and vaccinations. It recommends administration of the BCG vaccination at birth. More information is available at immunisation.ie/en/Childhood Immunisation/PrimaryChildhoodImmunisationSchedule.

More information on the BCG vaccine is available at who.int/immunization_ monitoring/diseases/tuberculosis/en.

WHO information on TB is available at: who.int/features/factfiles/tb_facts/en.