Bed bugs

The dogs were brought in when there wasn't even a live bed bug found?? Or was there? Yikes.

This is an integrated pest management issue, not a nurse issue. I agree, the nurse's office should not be ground zero for mediation, especially if you have beds instead of cots. Just another example of everything falling onto the nurse.

Definitely not a nursing issue and I would have a problem with my clinic being ground zero.

I'm curious to know if the bedbugs have been confirmed at the student's home?

The student's sibling attends another school in our district and the dogs did find evidence of bed bugs in that school so they checked ours as well.

I've already admitted I'm a cave nurse...but is there really a such of thing as a bed bug sniffing dog?

There's an extermination company that used to have commercials on TV with "Roscoe, the bed bug sniffing dog". Cute little beagle. I haven't seen a Roscoe commercial in ages.

Yes Old Dude there is lol. Last time that they came to my school I watched them search it was pretty cool. The Health Department is now working with the family to remedy the situation at home, but that will be a long process. The staff at my school loses it when there's dreaded lice so you can imagine how they are handling this. Just so bummed that this is on me. But we should be used to that as school nurses right?

In our district, the clinic is "ground zero" for bedbug cases. I've never personally dealt with it, but other nurses have told me that the district will set up traps in the classroom for 72 hours to see if the area needs to be fumigated. I don't think we're advanced enough for the dogs. One of the nurses has a plastic tub under her sink where the affected students leave anything brought from home, and change clothes each morning into clothing purchased by the school. During the day, one of the staff members washes the clothes that were brought from home, so they are available the next morning. At the end of the day, the students retrieve their backpacks before going home.

OK, I you tubed it...if I could find a dog that could sniff out head lice...hmmm

I had no idea there were bed bug-sniffing dogs, either. You learn something every day. I guess I can go to bed now.

So my colleague at the other school mentioned to her principal that having the "hot box" in the office could be a potential health code violation. They relocated the hot box from her office to another space. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that? I'm looking for a way to get this thing out of here

I had a previous position in a LTC community with young adults with DDs that had a bed bug outbreak. Other than treating the bites, nursing was not allowed to be involved. For the longest time our administration attempted to restrict us from using the words "bed bugs" in our reporting. We had a 'home connection' team, similar to the school social workers that handled clothing, provided information on treatment to the families and containing the spread.

Now that I'm a school nurse I can see how they would try to push it on the nurse, but I think ultimately it falls back on the parent. Just like with lice, we can tell parents to do the treatment at home to help prevent the spread at school