www.awnw.com.au
Issue #314 – Wednesday, 20 January, 2016
Albury Wodonga’s largest circulating newspaper
Carping criticism ... The carp are causing a bit of a stir, and not just in the water... find out why. MORE ON PAGE 3
It pays to get the jab By MONIQUE KUZEFF A NEW immunisation policy ‘No Jab, No Pay’ requires that parents of children (less than 20 years of age) who are not fully immunised or on a recognised catch-up schedule will no longer be eligible to receive family assistance payments. The No Jab, No Pay policy was put into action from 1 January as a part of the Federal Government’s commitment to improving immunisation coverage in Australia. According to the new policy, conscientious objection and vaccination objection on non-medical grounds will no longer be a valid exemption from immunisation requirements and Centrelink will notify families who do not meet the new immunisation requirements. General practitioner at the Jindera Medical and Acupuncture Centre Dr Glen Mobilia, who has been applying the new requirements, supports the government’s new immunisation policy. Dr Mobilia said the positives of immunisation far outweigh the negative and he believed that people should think not only of their child but of other people’s children as well. “I believe that immunisation does prevent the infectious diseases and consequences of those diseases. “You’ve been given an incentive to try and do what the evidence at the time strongly shows,” Dr Mobilia said. “Overall the best option is not always clear however, we should try and base what we do on readily available evidence. “There is an overall responsibility in other people who have taken that step with immunisation and you’ve got to consider the general community prevention strategy,” he said. Dr Mobilia said the incentive of family assistance payment should not be the reason parents get their children vaccinated. “Unfortunately it does happen, for example some people get pregnant be-
cause there’s some pregnancy payout available,” he said. “You’ve got to respect that people are entitled to have a their own view
and all I can really do in my position is provide information from which they can come to a decision as parents for their children.”
The new policy states that only medical contra-indications and natural immunity are considered for possible exemptions from the new immunisa-
tion requirements but a form must be completed that is then submitted to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) for overview.
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