A Central Auckland daycare has called for a two-year-old student to be removed after multiple allergic reactions to food served on-site. Photo / Supplied
A Central Auckland daycare has called for a two-year-old student to be removed after multiple allergic reactions to food served on-site. Photo / Supplied
An Auckland family is frustrated after their 2-year-old daughter with allergies was asked to leave a daycare.
The daycare centre struggled to manage the child’s severe allergies, leading to multiple allergic reactions.
The Ministry of Education is processing a complaint about the daycare’s handling of food allergies.
A family is frustrated after a Central Auckland daycare asked their 2-year-old daughter with severe food allergies to leave following three reactions.
Milena Le Mancq’s daughter Mona is allergic to peanuts, cashews, pistachios, eggs and kiwifruit.
“She carries an EpiPen and is severely allergic to all of them,” she told the Herald.
Le Mancq said they discovered their daughter’s allergies when she was 6 months old and she has been going to the daycare centre since she was 1.
“We don’t have any family here so the only way for her to be looked after was to put her in a daycare centre.”
When their daughter started, Le Mancq and her husband met daycare staff to explain her allergies and discuss how they would be managed because staff cook and serve the food on-site.
However, a month after starting in October last year, staff accidentally gave Mona kiwifruit for a snack and she suffered an allergic reaction.
Le Mancq and her husband met daycare staff to review what happened and talk through how to manage food.
A Central Auckland daycare has called for a 2-year-old student to be removed after multiple allergic reactions to food served on-site. Photo / Supplied
But three weeks later, daycare staff accidentally gave Mona a banana muffin with egg, causing another allergic reaction.
Le Mancq and her husband again met daycare staff.
“This time we brainstormed for almost two hours. We looked at every single detail about how they manage food and how they can just forget. We felt quite good about what was put in place,” she told the Herald.
But three weeks ago, Mona suffered another reaction from eating kiwifruit.
“This time she had a worse allergic reaction because she vomited a lot, she broke out in hives and she was touching her tongue.”
Le Mancq organised another meeting after returning from overseas, but was told by the daycare owner she thought it would be best if the family look for a new centre.
“I was still jetlagged and I said ‘what are you saying? Are you telling us you want [us] to go but you can’t say that?’”
Le Mancq said the owner justified asking them to leave because it was too complex, Mona had too many allergies, teachers were too stressed around her and they could not guarantee an incident wouldn’t happen again.
“She said we should consider home-based care because of her allergies and it is too difficult for a centre to look after a kid like her.”
An email from the centre confirms “we felt we were unable to provide you the reassurance you were looking for in the form of a guarantee for the next 3 years and didn’t want to put any of us in this situation again”.
But Le Mancq said her daughter’s allergies are “quite common”.
The daycare told the Auckland couple to look into "home-based care" because it was too difficult for a centre to look after "a kid like her". Photo / Supplied
“It’s kiwifruit. It’s not like a hidden allergy, you just have to not give her the kiwifruit.”
Le Mancq said she didn’t blame the staff for making mistakes, but was more angry about her daughter being asked to leave.
“In an ideal world, we would have worked with them and our daughter would have stayed at the centre. You can imagine at that age it’s quite a big transition to move,” she said.
“She’s not going to understand why she isn’t going to the same daycare. She loved going to that centre. She is paying the consequences of something she didn’t choose.
“We want this story to be about if you are having issues with your food allergies and processes, you can’t just kick out the kid with food allergies.
“You have to improve, talk to other centres, work with the parents and just do better.”
An email from the centre to Mona’s parents said: “We did not insist she leave and would have continued to work with you if you’d been clear that was something you wanted.
“If we were only working with Mona’s specific health needs, we would be recruiting process-driven teachers, but we have a diverse and rich team to support all the early learning needs and expectations in our environment.”
Ministry of Education northern region leader Isabel Evans said early learning services were expected to provide a learning programme that was safe, inclusive and free from discrimination, including for children with severe allergies.
“Services are required to meet and maintain all regulatory requirements when children are attending.
“The ministry has notified the early learning centre that a complaint has been made by the parent and is now progressing with the complaints process,” Evans said.
The daycare refused to comment on individual families’ circumstances.
“We take the privacy of all of our families very seriously and adhere to all of the principles outlined in the Privacy Act and further advice provided by the Ministry of Education.”
David Williams is an Auckland-based Multimedia Journalist who joined the Herald in 2023. He covers breaking news and general topics.
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