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By ANDREA BAILLIE

TORONTO -- Some Ontario parents are scrambling to find their children's immunization records after a wave of suspensions for students who were unable to prove that their shots were up to date.

"The suspension is the ultimate penalty," said Dr. Liana Nolan, associate medical officer of health for Waterloo Region, where 84 Grade 2 students were ordered home last week after they failed to produce current vaccination records.

"If it was just a matter of us calling up and saying 'pretty please' (for the immunization record), we wouldn't get very far," Nolan said.

Health officials say the threat of suspension is usually enough to jolt parents into providing the information. By lunch time on the day the suspensions began, the number had dropped to 48 students and was down to 31 by day's end.

This week, Nolan said the health unit has been waiting on documents for only a handful of students.

In many cases, she says, it isn't that the students haven't been immunized, but simply that their parents were unable to provide proof.

Health officials across the province say the incident in Waterloo is not unusual. The Immunization of School Pupils Act stipulates that a child can receive a 20-day suspension if records are not produced.

Suspending students, they say, is a last resort.

"We work really closely with parents and schools not to suspend," says Marcia Matthews of the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Health Unit. "If we do suspend, we work hard to remedy that."

But the suspensions that do occur often make headlines, causing some parents to become indignant at the thought their child might be ordered home.

"Absolutely," some parents think it's a hassle, said Candy Lipton, acting manager of the vaccine preventable disease program for Toronto public health.

"I'm a parent. I wouldn't want to be threatened either. (But) it's the best way to keep kids healthy ... Our goal is not to suspend kids, our goal is to get the information."

Because the records are gathered by individual health units, it's difficult to say how many suspensions occur in the province each year. Some health units don't target every child each year, choosing instead to focus on specific schools or a specific age group.

Earlier this week in Hamilton, for example, 11 Grade 3 students at two schools were suspended. The students are just past the required age for having the booster shot usually given between ages four and six.

Matthews says parents were given ample notice to come up with the information and that the suspensions are lifted as soon as the information is supplied.

"We try at all costs to avoid suspending students," she said. "(But) for some people suspending their children gives us immediate response."

A very small percentage of children in Ontario are exempted from immunization on moral, religious or medical grounds. If an outbreak occurs, they are asked to stay away from school.

While it may seem paradoxical that certain students are suspended for not producing their records when some of their classmates may not be immunized anyway, Matthews says the point is making a choice one way or the other. Then the local health unit must be provided with up-to-date records.

"Immunizing children is not mandatory in Ontario," she said. "It's mandatory to choose."

And while suspending children may seem like a drastic measure, Matthews says it's important to remember the reason children are immunized in the first place.

"People don't recognize the devastation that vaccine-preventable diseases can cause," she said. "We don't see it in North America, so people have come to expect that it's not going to happen."

Dr. Bryna Warshawsky, associate medical officer for the Middlesex-London Health Unit, regrets the strong-arm tactics.

"It's unfortunate that we have to use a threat of suspension to get this done," she said.

"There are people that feel threatened and there are other people who are grateful for it."