Shots

Even though this is Texas, I'm not talking about guns or tequilas, but vaccinations. I've always been an advocate of childhood vaccinations. When Alice was a baby there was some controversy surrounding the safety of the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, and many parents chose not to vaccinate against these life-threatening diseases, unsurprisingly to me there was a measles outbreak in Wales last summer. Suffice to say, we had followed the immunisation program recommended in the UK and the three of them were completely up-to-date.

When I began the school enrollment process I discovered that they will not allow children to start school without fulfilling the 'Texas Minimum State Vaccine Requirements', and have the paperwork to prove it.  I compare their vaccine records with the list:

Four doses of Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis, check.
Four doses of Polio, check.
Two doses of MMR, check.
Varicella (chicken pox), had it.
Two doses of Hepatitis A, no.
Two doses of Hepatitis B, no.

A quick Google search and we find a local pharmacy with a walk-in clinic that does the hepatitis vaccinations, so off we go. We walk to the back of the supermarket-sized pharmacy and check in to the clinic. Whilst we wait for our appointment, the pharmacist at the counter answers the phone "Hello Walgreen's, how can I help you feel well today?", an image springs to my mind of the pharmacy in St. Mellons where any kind of customer satisfaction is low on their list of priorities, and I have to stifle a laugh. When we get in to our appointment, the nurse informs me that she can't treat under 7's, Evan will have to see a paediatrician, but for $170 each (gulp) Alice and David get the first in the course of their Hepatitis vaccinations.

The search for a paediatrician for Evan then began. Of course, you can't see a doctor without medical insurance, and we're not "in the system" yet, it's going to be a week before we show up on the policy. Even with our insurance details we would have to wait 3 weeks for an appointment for the initial "well check". Our options were an emergency medical clinic (that'll be $240 please) or the Tarrant County Public Health Office, who will vaccinate uninsured kids for $25 but you have to be there before 8am and then anticipate a long wait.

Then the phone rings, it's the nurse from the boys school. Yes, they have a full-time nurse (and a police officer) at the school; why it can't be set up so she can administer childhood vaccinations is beyond me. They all need another dose of Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis and Polio, because 'Texas State Law' states they must have had the final one of the series on or after their 4th birthday, but in the UK it's done between 3.5 and 4 years. They had it a few months too early and there is absolutely no flexibility in this, and no opting out without going through a lengthy process of appeals. I may be pro-immunistaion, but I still think medical intervention should be a choice.

We're up and out of the house by 7am to make it down to the Tarrant County Public Health Center in Watuaga. We arrive at 7:30am and there's already a long queue, it's half an hour before they open the doors.

Pretty isn't it, reminds me of Newport, except there's plenty of parking.

An hour later we're at the front of the queue. They take the kids' immuisation records and we we're given numbered tickets and forms to fill out.  By 9am we'd completed all the documentation, paid our $75, and were told to come back in 2 hours for the injections. We popped home for an hour and returned at 11am. Wait, wait, (thank goodness for devices and some friendly banter in the waiting room), wait, and at 12:45pm we are called in. The kids get their 'shots' and the hallowed official Tarrant County Immunisation Record sheets on to which they have transferred their entire immunisation history. We've just got to go back to their schools again now to drop them off to the nurses.

They are milking it; Rob has promised them a special treat of
their choosing if they are good and patient at the health clinic.