Thousands of Hamilton students suspended for out-of-date or missing vaccination records

A view of the city with Tim Hortons Field is seen in Hamilton, Ont., Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Carlos Osorio

More than 2,500 high school students in Hamilton have been suspended for missing or out-of-date vaccination records, according to local public health officials.

Dr. Brendan Lew, Hamilton’s associate medical officer of health, confirmed that the enforcement under the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA) took effect on March 7 after two notices were issued to parents and guardians to update their child’s records or provide valid exemption.

Under the ISPA, students can be exempted from immunization for medical reasons or due to conscience or religious belief. However, in order to receive a religious or conscience exemption parents must watch a vaccine education video and make a formal declaration that is signed by a commissioner for taking affidavits in Ontario.

“Vaccinations are an effective and important tool for preventing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in school community populations and at the community level,” Lew said in a statement to CTV News Toronto. “When vaccination rates drop in a community, it is easier for diseases to spread amongst unvaccinated and under-vaccinated individuals and can cause outbreaks of serious diseases such as measles.”

Ontario is currently seeing an outbreak of measles, linked to the exposure of a travel-related case in New Brunswick on Oct. 18, and in a letter to Hamilton city council earlier this year, health officials with the city warned that recent local cases “underscore the importance of these vaccinations.”

In a separate statement issued Friday, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said the province has seen 350 cases of measles since the outbreak, which he said is the most the province has recorded in more than a decade.

Lew noted that since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ensuing closure of schools and other factors, there has been a lag in routine school-based vaccines. He said that vaccination rates have improved post-pandemic but continue to be lower than what they were before 2020.

According to PHO, only 70 per cent of all seven-year-old children in Ontario were immunized against measles during the last school year, which it said represents a “large decline” compared to before the pandemic.

In the 2022/2023 school year, Hamilton Public Health Services said it resumed its annual practice of screening vaccination records for all students in the city and mailing home letters to parents and guardians to notify them of out-of-date or missing information.

This academic year, Hamilton health officials resumed enforcement, by way of suspensions, under the ISPA to ensure vaccination rates are high enough to limit transmission and prevent outbreaks.

As a result, in January, Hamilton Public Health Services sent out 8,750 letters to students in grades 9 through 12 to notify them of their outstanding vaccination records. The total enrolled cohort of high school students between the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board at that time was 26,102.

The orders were sent out on Feb. 5 and a month later, on March. 7, health officials said the number of students subject to suspension, up to a period of 20 days, in “this wave” of enforcement totalled 2,956 . As of 4:30 p.m. this time last week, 2,511 students have still not provided valid vaccination records or exemption and remain suspended.

CTV News Toronto has reached out to other public health units in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area to see if similar orders have been issued to school boards in those areas.

Toronto Public Health (TPH) said it’s currently assessing the vaccination status of Grade 11 students in the city born in 2008, who missed their school-based vaccinations when they were in Grade 7 due to the pandemic. So far, TPH said it has issued more than 18,000 letters to parents and guardians of students with incomplete vaccination records.

Since then, a spokesperson told CTV News Toronto that it began mailing suspension orders on Feb. 24, the exact number of which was not provided. Active suspensions are scheduled to begin on Apr. 8, they said.

In Halton Region, a spokesperson said 6,658 suspension orders were mailed on Jan. 2 and as of Feb. 13, at least 1,285 students in grades 9 through 12 were suspended. The spokesperson noted that the suspension period ended on Friday.

Durham Region said in an email to CTV News Toronto that it was in the process of implementing ISPA in elementary and secondary schools and current suspension numbers are unavailable.