The parents among the student body of SGU need your help. Due to university policy, our children are currently not allowed on campus because they cannot be vaccinated. This has excluded families from all sorts of activities and services that we thought were available to us when we decided to move to Grenada with our children. We were told that the Ministry of Health considers children with vaccinated parents to be equivalent to having vaccinated status. Parents were not informed that the university nevertheless maintained a child exclusion policy. Families with children have been deprived of access to everything from conveniences such as using the gym to social activities and volunteer opportunities such as the WIM Pink Run, as well as from religious services held on campus and even urgent care at the university clinic. These exclusions not only remove virtually all social and emotional support for parents but have also at times had potential to cause or have actually caused financial hardship and, in a few cases, even life-threatening circumstances for families. While some of these services from which we have been excluded are technically supposed to be available to us, staff at the gate and at the clinic have not always been aware that they should, for example, allow a child who has been bitten by monkey subsequently receive care at the clinic for rabies prevention.
Parents recently presented our concerns to the SGA who conveyed them to the Dean of Students. We requested revisions and clarifications of the policy as well as better communication of policies to the student body so families can make informed decisions about bringing their children here. The reply that we received was, in short, that there was not enough need. We maintain that an ambulance refusing to respond to a medical emergency or staff at the gate or clinic not being aware of allowances that should be made for children to receive medical care could be devastating. On behalf of all parents who may come to SGU with a child, we are not satisfied with the answer that there isn’t a great enough need to communicate with parents about these issues.