Doctors urge vaccines as kids head back to school

Dr. Elizabeth Olson with the Ochsner Brees Community Health Center explained to Moving New Orleans Forward anchor LBJ how important it is to protect your children.

“The whole idea of an immunization is to be sure that we protect against things that either we don’t have a good treatment for, if you get the disease, or the disease comes on so quickly that you’re playing catch up if you’re not immunized,” said Olson.

Many vaccinations are required for kids to attend school and in spite of the state health director announcing not to promote vaccinations. Olson acknowledges the difficulty of parental decision but encourages parents to trust the science.

“Things like measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, pertussis which is whooping cough. All of those things can make kids super, super sick and so, my job, my goal is to keep them out of the hospital,” said Olson.

At the Ochsner Brees Community in New Orleans East, the goal is to assist families, answer many of those questions and keep everyone healthy.

“This is something that breaks my heart for parents. I just had a discussion with a parent about this the other day because every parent just wants to do the right thing. They all want to do right by their children, and they are bombarded with information and guilt. So many enormous feelings and pressure,” said Olson.

Olson adds that the community clinic places a special emphasis on the mental health of children.

“We do a lot of focusing on buffering children so that when they are exposed to these adverse experiences that they have community around them that can support them and get them through that,” said Olson.

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