Halifax mom wants head lice checks back in schools

A Halifax mother says it’s time schools brought back public health nurses to check children for lice on a regular basis.

Robyn Berman said she had no choice but to shave her boys’ long, curly hair after both were infested with the pests.

'It’s only a nuisance. We have to keep that in mind' —Nicole Wallot, public health nurse

The boys had been growing their hair for a year for a cancer fundraiser.

"It was horrible," said Ben Berman. "My mom was picking at my hair for hours and hours."

Robyn Berman said the pests just wouldn’t go away. The family decided that shaving was their only option.

"We just knew it wasn't going to be possible to pick every nit off every hair of these big huge heads of blonde curliness.  We felt it was morally the right thing to do, ethically the right thing to do."

School support

Now, Berman wants schools to do more.

"It would be very beneficial to have nit pickers or nit checkers," said Berman.

Berman is the co-chair of the school association at LeMarchant St. Thomas School. She said she knows of at least six other cases of lice among the kids.

"When I was a kid, we had public health nurses come to the school to check childrens’ heads for lice. So, it would be wonderful if there was some kind of system in place that engaged the parent population, so people understood a little more about prevention."

But a public health nurse says screening wouldn’t diminish the outbreaks.

In 2011, the Halifax school board changed its policy on lice, saying children were missing too many classes after being pulled out when lice were found. Since lice are not a public health risk, the board said that only children with live lice on their heads had to stay out of class.

"Head lice doesn’t cause any disease," said Nurse Nicole Wallot. "It’s only a nuisance. We have to keep that in mind."

Wallot said this year is no worse than other years, but lice can be hard to control.

"The evidence showed that having volunteers or nurses checking doesn’t make it better," she said. "Really, it comes down to the parents treating."

She said parents need to comb their children’s hair every day for about three weeks.

"We actually recommend to focus on the lice itself," she said. "It’s hard with the nits because there’s hundreds of them sometimes."