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A ninth-grade student from a Lisbon school is prevented from entering the school after taking COVID-19, even though the mother has already presented the negative test result.
Gabriel has not been to class for more than three weeks, having lost contact with teachers, classmates and the subjects that are taught. “I asked him to send me papers so that he could follow him, but nothing. Today he had a Physics-Chemistry exam and he didn’t do it,” Judith Soares, mother of the 14-year-old boy, told Lusa.
The process of sending information to schools, by health entities, is taking about a week, said the student’s mother, to explain to Gabriel the efforts she is making to be able to return to school.
The student had covid-19 but the screening test has already confirmed that he is cured. Last week, the mother sent the results of the laboratory to the director of the Escola EB23 Luís de Camões class, who responded by saying that the student only enters the premises with a “certificate of cure.”
“I am glad for your improvements but keep in mind that Gabriel can only return to school accompanied by a certificate of cure from the doctor. The result of the test is not enough,” replied the director of the class in an exchange of mail email to which Lusa had access.
The mother contacted the Health Center, called SNS24, tried to contact the family doctor, but all those who responded to her request for help said that the test result was sufficient and that they would not pass any statement.
Judith again informed the principal that she had no certificate and that the health center doctor had said that the school had to receive the student with the negative test.
But the school maintained the position of not allowing Gabriel to enter. Lusa contacted the school group’s leadership today, which was not available to clarify the matter.
On Monday, Lusa questioned the general director of Health, Graça Freitas, who reaffirmed what the other health authorities had already said: “A child or adult who is forty years old, is asymptomatic and has a negative test can return to your school” .
The covid-19 pandemic brought new rules to the school grounds. Each school had to prepare for the eventuality of an outbreak and, for that, devised a contingency plan.
The Luís de Camões School Group Contingency Plan defines that people are considered cured when they have a total absence of fever and no other symptoms for three consecutive days or when they have a negative laboratory test. “After determining the cure and the indication of the Local Health Authority, the person can return to the educational establishment,” says the document.
Judith was at the school in person on Monday to speak with parents and find a solution to get their son back to school. But, again, it failed. “Nobody wants to know. A person feels lonely, not knowing who to turn to,” he said.
The health services are overloaded with work, do not receive people without prior appointments, do not answer phones and have full mailboxes, he told Lusa.
On the school side, fear of the unknown reigns. But for Judith, the most serious thing is the way they treat parents and students.
Four weeks ago, on September 21, Judith told the school board that she and her husband were experiencing covid symptoms and, as a precautionary measure, they would not send their son to school. “I did not want to expose anyone to this danger. Gabriel has a colleague who is at risk, because he is diabetic and could never send him to school,” he explained.
When the test results came in, the worst fears were confirmed: the parents were contaminated. A few days later, Gabriel also received a positive test for covid-19.
Judith warned the class principal. Before, he had alerted the parents of Gabriel’s class, through the group they created on WhatsApp. “I did what I wanted them to do to me, which was to warn them to watch out for any symptoms,” he explained.
Lusa spoke with other parents who thanked Gabriel’s mother for her concern. But, according to Judith, not everyone applauded the initiative: “The school principal called me to untangle me, saying I had panicked at school,” she said.
Judith also regrets that no one at the school ever called to see if Gabriel was better. Regarding the request that teachers send the materials that were being given in class, Judith says she only received a response from the class principal.
Today, Gabriel had a physical-chemical examination that he was prevented from doing. The mother recalls that in the last school year, face-to-face classes were suspended in March and, until the end of the year, Luís de Camões’s students “had little follow-up” by the teachers.
In this new academic year, most schools are taking advantage of the first weeks of classes to recover and consolidate subjects that were not taught last year. Judith feels that her son “is being harmed” by a problem that transcends them.
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