Tuesday, 09 March 2010
IS it appropriate for a 15-year-old to be provided with contraceptives without their parents’ knowledge?
This is the scenario that has generated a flurry of letters to the editor of the Beacon for the past fortnight, after a disgruntled Whakatane father wrote in to vent his outrage when this happened to his daughter.
Jason Gardiner became concerned he was losing his parental rights when his 15-year-old daughter Shayanne came home with condoms after seeing the public health nurse at Trident High School.
Mr Gardiner was appalled that his daughter, who wasn’t sexually active and was legally under-aged, was provided with the tools to commit an illegal act.
“It would be like giving a young burglar the tools to commit the crime,” he said.
He said his daughter had only gone to the nurse to support her friend and the nurse had encouraged her to take them after she initially turned them down.
She had showed her father the condoms and a small tube of gel with instructions that accompanied them that afternoon.
To Mr Gardiner, this is an issue of parental rights and he feels as though he is being undermined as a parent as, by giving her easy access to contraceptives, the school was encouraging her to become sexually active.
He felt there should be discussion with the child’s parents before anything of this nature was provided to his daughter.
When he contacted the school, he was advised that they were not responsible for the decisions or actions of the public health nurse.
Public health nurses are deployed by the Bay of Plenty District Health Board to run clinics in rural communities such as Whakatane, Kawerau and Opotiki.
They also run regular weekly clinics at Whakatane and Trident High Schools and Edgecumbe College, in which one focus area is sexual health.
In a statement to the Beacon, health board chief operating officer Phillip Balmer said all students attending the school of any age could request an appointment or attend the clinic.
Mr Balmer said there was no age restriction on the provision of sexual health services and the right to consent to treatment and right to privacy was afforded a 15-year-old.
Therefore, any form of medical advice could be provided without the consent of the parents.
However, he said contraceptives were only provided if requested and the goal was always to encourage a young person to talk to their parents about any decisions to do with sex and related issues.
“Obviously it is a decision parents make as to when and how they will approach these subjects,” Mr Balmer said.
It is the matter of privacy that Mr Gardiner intends to take further.
Since the incident last month, he has sought legal advice from East Coast MP and education minister Anne Tolley and has a meeting set up with the school’s board of trustees. He was also hoping to meet with someone from the health board.
After this he plans to hold a public forum to discuss what should be done about the issue and how to retain parental rights in light of this privacy clause, which he would like to amend.