Diastat on field trips

[kidzcare]

Looking for your thoughts on a recent debate in my district. Thanks for any insight!!

If a student has diastat ordered to be given in case of a seizure lasting >5 minutes, do you send this on a field trip with no nurse?

[kidzcare]

So based on your "research" across the globe, have you arrived at as consensus for your post?

Not really. It's more informational. New director does not want to send diastat on field trips (I think because then we send a nurse which costs the district money). I disagree and think that if it is ordered, we should have it available to the student while they are in our care.

[OldDude]

Not really. It's more informational. New director does not want to send diastat on field trips (I think because then we send a nurse which costs the district money). I disagree and think that if it is ordered, we should have it available to the student while they are in our care.

I totally agree. The thing I don't understand is...why the resistance? It's a no brainer. Circumstances to administer the medicine are much easier to identify than giving epi, it's a prepackaged dose, it takes no exceptional skill to administer, and it's unlikely the child is going to die while you are waiting for EMS.

[BrisketRN, BSN, RN]

My administration's favorite thing to do is convince our previous nurse (parent here, resigned on good terms) to chaperone the field trips with our student with epilepsy because former nurse's child is in the same class. The teacher is trained, but they always say "oh it's fine we have (old nurse) coming on the trip in case there's a problem!" Y'all, she's going as a parent...not as the nurse.

[OyWithThePoodles, RN]

We have no nurse subs. Boo.

We also can delegate Diastat to teachers.

[aprilmoss]

I've only ever had two and in both cases the parents were pretty good at volunteering to chaperone the trips their kids were on. If they didn't, we'd have to cover it with an RN. We have two "managerial" nurses in the district that get sucked into duties like that (substituting when one of us is ill, etc...).

[Catern1]

In NYS , only a licensed nurse can administer Diastat. So yes, the student , diastat and a nurse would need to accompany. You can also ask the parent or parent designee to attend.

[beachynurse, ASN, BSN]

In our school division, we can ask the teachers if they are willing to be trained. They have the right to say no. If they say no, we have to inform the parents and inform them that the teacher is not trained and hope that they will be willing to go with the student. If not an emergency plan is developed where 911 will be called if the student has any seizure activity at all.