Bill No. 143 - Emergency Aid at School Act. - Second Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to Bill No. 143, emergency aid at school.

I appreciate the comments of my colleagues. The NDP caucus supports the purpose of this bill and all decisions to make sure that our schools and classrooms are safe. I think we, of course, all agree on that in the Legislature. The point of legislation around that is to ensure that it's, in fact, provided for by the government.

In terms of AEDs, I was really interested to learn the comments of my new colleagues on AEDs and the time-sensitive nature of the use of those devices. We introduced a bill just last session around improving public access to AEDs, so the registry was mentioned several times. We think that registry should be mandatory, not optional, because it's fine if you have an AED in the building but what if no one knows what it is?

Part of that was inspired by the event that happened with our colleague in the PC caucus. It was great that there were people there with know-how and that they knew where the necessary expertise was, but not everyone always does.

We also strongly support that those machines should be in all public buildings and that not only should individuals register them, but that that registry should be kept up to date and should be supplied regularly to EHS so that all first responders also know where those machines are.

I think it's clear that those are necessary but again, that's not an issue of community banding together; that's an issue of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, maybe in collaboration with the Department of Health and Wellness, ensuring that those machines are put into those buildings. I think that's what this bill is calling for.

In terms of Naloxone kits, which we know can reverse opioid overdoses as we've been discussing - obviously, those are another important first aid tool. Like the member for Lunenburg West, we also have taken that training in my office. I think it should be mandatory for all MLA offices, frankly.

Under the Rules of this House to take that kind of training, we all see vulnerable people in our offices who are suffering myriad challenges. That's why they come to see us. This is one of them.

Certainly, in schools we know that although we in Nova Scotia haven't experienced the epidemic of opioid use disorder that we've seen across the province, it's coming. Public Health tells us that it's coming. As with many issues, we tend to follow rather than lead, but we have the opportunity to be prepared and I think this is a great example of how our province can be prepared.

Nobody wants to talk about young people with opioid use disorder overdosing in schools or on school grounds. That's a horrible thing to think about, and yet we know that it's more likely than not that that may happen. If it does, it's important that the teachers and others at those schools are prepared in that event.

There were 54 confirmed opioid toxicity deaths in 2018. As of September 1st, there have been 28 confirmed and nine probable opioid toxicity deaths in 2019. Since January 2016, more than 10,000 Naloxone kits have been dispensed in Nova Scotia and there have been 135 repeated reversals. In all likelihood, that's 135 lives that were saved, 135 people who are alive today who otherwise wouldn't be alive. These kits are easy to come by. They are widely available, and this would, essentially, be a simple policy change to just ensure that they're in all schools.

As for anaphylactic allergies, epinephrine or EpiPens, this is a huge issue in our public schools, so there are lots and lots of people - and increasing numbers of people, strangely - who have anaphylactic allergies: allergies to peanuts, allergies to bee stings, allergies of that nature.

As someone pointed out, many of these children do wear an EpiPen on their body if they know that they have that kind of life-threatening allergy - if they can afford it and if there's not a shortage of EpiPens, which happened very recently in Nova Scotia. Particularly given that we have one in five children living in Nova Scotia in poverty, this is a life-saving issue.

I suspect that in fact these EpiPens are in the schools, and I suspect Mr. Speaker, that the teachers are paying for them. The question is, these need to be provided, and they need to be provided by the department and ensure that they are there. In my children's school there's a picture board in the front office with every child with an anaphylactic allergy so that if any of those children present with an issue, immediately the office kicks into high gear. So, schools are already paying attention to these allergies; they're finely tuned to respond to them. My daughter was stung by a wasp last week on the playground and I got a phone call within probably a minute and a half asking if she was allergic. Because if she were and they didn't know about it, again, that could've been life or death.

I think all these things, Mr. Speaker, are totally reasonable asks. I think what I see in this bill is asking that the presence of these things be codified and, where necessary, paid for and provided by the relevant departments. I think we often hear when we present this kind of legislation, or our colleagues present this legislation, platitudes from the government saying, oh of course we believe in this, of course we think it's important. We all think it's important; safety in schools is important. If it is happening, that's fantastic, but I think what we want to see is where is it actually happening - where is it mandated? Who's paying for it? Are we sure it's the regional centres and the government or the relevant ministry that's paying for these supplies and not the teachers and not the administrators?

I think that that's the spirit of this bill. We support the spirit of that bill. As I mentioned, we introduced our own related to AEDs. We fully support the use of Naloxone. Obviously. EpiPens are really important, and EpiPens are the most expensive - I mean AEDs are expensive, but they have a broad-reaching impact, but EpiPens are very expensive. I look forward, I hope at some point, to the government talking about the practical ways in which these things are or will be accomplished because I believe that we all believe that students in school should be safe. I'd love to hear details.