The Fight to Keep School Nurses Continues

we lost ours eons ago, down to a "clerk" who would just automatically call parents if kids came to the office for anything. It's getting ridiculous. There is ONE nurse for the whole district. What good is that?

Schools need to think. What happens if a child, who has an allergic reaction to something goes into shock? Just sit there and call their parents?

basically that is what happens. It is really scary frankly.

not to mention the health issues that the nurses catch when kids come in for a bandaid. the nurse at one of the schools i worked at noticed a mole on a kids shoulder that seemed bigger and looked suspicious. She called the mom and the mom whipped out old pics and noticed the nurse was right called the doc and sure enough it was cnacerous. (they caught it early so kid ended up fine) Then their are the abuse issues that come up the head lice, kids that get hit on the head at recess and due to the nurses evaluation get a much needed trip to the docs office that probably wouldn't have happened if a lay person examined the child. A substitute nurse one day took a bp on a student who was in the office for a headache, and found the student to have extremely high bp, she called the parents about it and referred to the pediatrician and the student ended up being place on daily medication for hypertension. then there is the community health aspect, finding cheap and even free dental and medical care for high risk students due to connections and networking in the community. Knowing when playground injuries are serious enough to need emergency attention, what to do with over medicated students, anaphlyactic responses, referring students and parents to their doctor with suspiciuos symptoms (our nurse found 2 diabetic students in 1 semester and only through her perserverance and education with the parents were the pediatricians alerted to the ongoing symptoms). It is dangerous not to have a school nurse on staff, i worked as a health assistant in the schools for 3 years in close connection with the nurse who was in the building 1-2 day per week. Even with all the phone calls and faxes to her everyday for guidance and my protocols and training, I absolutely feel that if the nurse could have been there everday, more future problems could have been averted. School nurses do not get the credit that they deserve and it is a real shame. To all of you school nurses out their just know that some of us really do value and appreciate the work that you do and know how important it is!