Kidzee School — health problem

Address:	395009
Website:	www. ihatekidzee.tk

Anonymous by kidzee teacher:

I was a nursery teacher in charge of the three-year-olds, and my eldest child was also attending the nursery at kidzee.
There was a good teacher who was asthmatic at my kidzee center. We became good friends and when i needed to travel, she would stay at my house to take care of my kids.

After some time, she started to fall ill often. I and many other teachers suspected she had tb. She had all the symptoms and she had been travelling a lot to her hometown prior to that and her hometown had a high incidence of tb.

She told me that she was going to see the doctor for a full medical checkup. She was very secretive after that, refusing to reveal her illness. A few days later, my kidzee center head informed me that this teacher was going to be on three months' sick leave.
I questioned if it was tb. All my kidzee center head said was that it was private and confidential. Every day at work, i kept pressing for the truth but the principal kept insisting it was private and confidential.

When i told her about the children who were exposed, all she said was they had no symptoms. She even bragged that one of the parents, who was a doctor, said that it was not serious and that we shouldn't cause a panic.
This was not the only 'cover up'. Three of my students were down with hand, foot and mouth disease (Hfmd), but the cases were also not reported.

I found out about the hfmd cases when the parents of one of the children asked me what type of school this was and why no proper precautions were taken to clean the school and inform the other parents.
I eventually resigned because i was not happy with the situation and neither did i feel safe, putting my children at risk.

On my last day of work, i went to the clinic as my baby was ill. Imagine my surprise when the doctor looked at me and chastised me for not coming in sooner for a medical checkup! She told me that a teacher at the nursery had had tb and as such everyone there had been exposed to it. She also informed me that the nursery had an obligation to inform all parents and staff.

Both my children had to go for x-rays and the mantoux test, where a tiny amount of the tb virus is injected under the skin. I had to go for an x-ray. My elder daughter and i tested negative but my baby was positive. The next few months were bad. She had more blood tests and she suffered so much. Her case was then transferred to the general hospital and the paediatric specialist for infectious diseases ordered another blood test. This meant more tests and more needles being stuck into her.
She seems to be in the clear now, but the hospital keeps calling us back for checkups as part of the procedure for tb-exposed patients.
I think it is the responsibility of the nursery to inform the parents if there is any tb, hfmd or infectious disease within the school community. Parents would actually be happy if they were informed.
Keeping a secret like this is just not fair to the students and parents. Kids below two and babies can actually die from tb because there's no right way of knowing fast enough if they have it.”