Ebola!

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Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

I know, I know.

Does your school or school district have an ebola preparedness plan yet?

I am in a private school and my principal is asking me to make an ebola preparedness plan for my clinic and our school. He says parents will be asking (oh, yes, I'm sure they will) and we need an answer and a plan.

I've looked around online all day and have found no school districts locally or nationally that have an actual ebola preparedness plan laid out.

How do I even get started with this? I know I need to be ready to recognize symptoms but then what?? I'm kinda overwhelmed at even the thought of this.

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"Close the school" is my plan.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

PERSONALLY, I don't know that I would want to be the one whose name goes down as author of such a plan. I take that statement back, I KNOW I wouldn't want to be associated with that plan.

Too many unknown variables and even the CDC is having problems. And they have all the experts!!! It's like the information changes daily and it's not for the POSITIVE.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health Nurse.

My Superintendent just emailed me about notification. I used a template to formulate a letter to be sent to parents then I need to send an email to staff. We will send it out electronically to students, they may also mail it home, and it will be posted on the District's website. Apparently, staff wanted to know about having anti-bacterial wipes in the classroom to help against Ebola.....

I did find this awesome article linked below for schools and Ebola. As for an Ebola plan it's just a general bio-hazard disaster plan. Isolate the student, call 911, call the parents, call the Health Department. And make sure to let staff know they are to NOT release the child to their parents regardless of what they say. I would also put a shelter-in-place (lock-down refers to locking the school down, turning off the lights, pretending you aren't home because there is a violent threat vs. shelter-in-place is you stay put due to a biological hazard) within the school until the more technical people can tell me it's all clear to evacuate a school. That's pretty much it.

5 Ways to Prevent Ebola in Schools - Campus Safety (There is a Page 2 with more guidelines)

There is no sense to have a specific Ebola plan. You school should have Disaster and Bio-hazard Emergency Plan. If they don't, now is the time to start it.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health, Home Care.

Doesn't't matter what you call it, it's an emergency preparedness plan. Should be coordinated with your local health dept. We closed one school with H1N1 and it was a great cooperative effort.

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Our district is writing our policy now. I can forward the info to you when it is completed.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Hospice,Med-Surg.

Many districts surrounding me released policies on Friday and many are working on them now. I created our draft today. My principal is reviewing it and we'll see where we go from here.

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