Sir, - In his letter, Prof Tom Matthews (November 18th) outlined that the real issue for him, as a paediatrician, was whether whooping cough vaccine causes brain damage as suggested on the front page of your paper (November 9th).
As a parent, I feel the real issue is having a child immunised at a location other than a GP's surgery and more importantly without adult attendance! To my knowledge all children who are immunised must have a parent or guardian in attendance. Hasn't our Department of Health recently finalised the new immunisation scheme with all GPs in the country? Why was the preschool booster omitted from the overall immunisation scheme? Why are our public health doctors still doing immunisations? Is it not time to finally hand over the responsibility to one person - the family doctor?
Surely the family practitioner, who knows his or her young patient best, is the person to carry out such an important service as childhood immunisations? Public health doctors' expertise is in the development of appropriate immunisation schemes for our community and not indeed immunising large numbers of junior infant schoolchildren!
Finally, Newbridge has taught us a few lessons - doctors are human despite our perceptions and expectations of them. Let's look at the system of delivering this important service critically and get it right once and for all. - Yours, etc.,
Raheen House,
Meath Road,
Bray
Co Wicklow.