Ontario Planning to Download Health Support Services for Students with Disabilities to Unqualified School Staff, Leaked Draft Suggests

Educational stakeholder groups are warning a draft document circulated by Ontario’s Ministry of Education outlines plans to download “medical” and potentially “clinical” support services for students with disabilities onto unqualified school board staff.

The new update to the government’s longstanding Program Memorandum 81, which covers the provision of health support services, speech and language services and therapy services in Ontario’s schools, would “delegate” many tasks currently handled by qualified health professionals to non-medical school staff.

According to the leaked draft policy document, newly obtained by PressProgress, unnamed “school board personnel” with no professional health or medical backgrounds could soon be tasked with medical responsibilities.

The draft policy document includes tables listing which health support services could be handled by qualified health professionals and which would be done by unqualified school staff.

The document suggests school staff could handle things like delivering oral medication, conducting “oral and nasal suction” procedures to remove mucus, providing a “clean intermittent” catheterization, as well as lifting, feeding and toileting.

The draft further proposes that tube feeding and injecting medication could be delivered by “school board personnel” as “delegated” by “health professionals.”

In a written submission to the Ministry of Education, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario raised serious concerns with the idea of downloading tasks previously performed by health workers to untrained educators.

“Expanding the scope of health support / medical procedures — including downloading functions that have only ever previously been performed by nurses — to other groups of workers opens a host of concerns,” ETFO said in its submission.

“Expanding the scope of health support/medical procedures and downloading medical services to educational staff who have no health care training is very concerning.”