TORONTO - The mother of a 12-year-old boy who died after suffering a severe asthma attack at school wants all Ontario school boards to allow kids to carry their emergency inhalers with them.
Sandra Gibbons says the public school in Straffordville, near Tilsonburg, kept taking inhalers away from her son Ryan because of a policy to lock up all prescription medications.
Ryan died Oct. 9, 2012 after an asthma attack when he was outside the school building during recess.
Progressive Conservative Jeff Yurek is urging the Ontario legislature to pass his private member's bill that would set a province-wide policy to allow kids with asthma to carry their inhalers in class.
He says many boards have a "misguided one-size-fits-all" policy for prescription drugs that must be changed to protect students with asthma.
Education Minister Liz Sandals says she is supportive of Yurek's bill, which he named Ryan's Law in honour of Ryan Gibbons.
The Ontario Lung Association says without access to their medication in school, kids with asthma are at risk.
The association says there are about 100 deaths from asthma in Ontario each year, and one in five children suffers with what doctors call a "chronic inflammatory disease of the airway."
A previous attempt by Yurek to pass Ryan's Law was stalled when the election was called in May, so he re-introduced the bill.
