All Quebec schools could be equipped with epinephrine injectors

Quebec's Education and Health ministriesare developing a framework for school-based care, according toLa Presse canadienne.

Part of this guide for educational institutions will concernthe distribution and administration ofmedication in emergency situations, including epinephrine injectors, more commonly knownby their trade name EpiPen.

This framework would recommend that each school have an injector. Currently, only afew schools have one available, but it's students who have allergies who arelegally responsible for bringing their own injectors.

The measure echoes a petition tabled in the National Assembly by Sylvie D'Amours, the Coalition Avenir Qubec (CAQ) MNA for Mirabel, who asked that the responsibility to provide injectors fall on elementary schools.

But CAQ members of the standing Committee on Culture and Education refused to take up this matter on Wednesday because of the work already underway on this topic, according to an email from the office of the government whip.

Currently, food products in cafeterias, vending machines, snacks brought by students and meals provided by catering services are monitored for the presence of allergensat school, a spokesperson for the Education Ministry said in an email.

But according to Allergies Qubec, an association that promotes safety for people with food allergies, nine foods are responsible for about 90 per cent of allergic reactions, making the project "utopian."

"It is almost impossible toexclude them," said Dominique Seigneur, the group's director of communications and development.

Some school service centres and school boards have also implemented intervention protocols in the event of anaphylactic shock.

However, no universal measure is applied across Quebecthe only province in the country that has notlegislatedsuch a response.

In search ofnecessary leadership

Each school is doing its best to manage the situation, according to Allergies Qubec, which has been campaigning for more than 15 years for the adoption of a standardized, general framework.

School efforts have led to "dubious practices, such as keeping auto-injectors at the reception office, rather than within immediate reach of the allergic person, or even ineffective measures such as banning certain foods and isolating allergic students during meals," read an open letter co-signed by the organization on March 21 Quebec Food Allergy Day.

Allergies Qubec notes all political parties have a marked interest in this issue, especially since an estimated 75,000 schoolchildren have one or more food allergies and that about one serious allergic reaction out of five happens in schools.

"Our file is well received and no one is against this desire to supervise young people, but it is as if we had no file holder. We can't get the necessary leadership to move things forward. It's mysterious," Seigneur said.

In June 2018, the Parti Qubcois, which then formed the official opposition, had tabled a bill so that Quebec would legislate to impose a universal protocol in the event of a serious allergic reaction. The health minister at the time, Liberal MNA Gatan Barrette, had raised the topic of providing all schools with an EpiPen.

In 2019, the health minister under the CAQ, Danielle McCann, opposed mandating a single protocol, saying she preferred "a guide to good practices," as reported in Le Soleil.

Common sense

Like defibrillators, which are becoming increasingly accessible in public places, or even fire extinguishers in the event of a fire, injectors should be available to schoolchildren, as are first aid kits in the event of a minor injury, said the Regroupement des comits de parents autonomes du Qubec (RCPAQ).

"It's a good idea fundamentally. I see no argument to support the contrary," Sylvain Martel, strategic advisor and spokesperson for the RCPAQ, said in an interview with La Presse canadienne. "There are ideas that don't need to be thought about for years to make sense."

Martel, however, said it is wrong to think that offering epinephrine injectors in schools will remove the burden of carrying one from students, as the petition suggests.

"It's a great idea to have them in schools, in case a student's expires, but keep in mind that kids who really need an EpiPen are going to be carrying one around with them everywhere they go, whether it's walking to school, on the bus, or going to friends' houses."