KatDD22

This isn't just happening in the hospital. I work for a large school district. Previous to this school year you had to be an RN with a bachelor's degree to cover a campus. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government allocated billions of dollars to relieve school nurses including funds that could be used to hire more nurses. However, instead of getting more help, much needed experienced nurse assistants were pulled out of large schools leaving the nurse alone with a huge number of students (my campus was about 1400 with 5 special needs units). On top of removing the assistants, they added enough extra duties on the nurses that they should have hired people to do those jobs alone, such as contact tracing, notifying contacts, state COVID case reporting, calculating isolation dates for employees and providing COVID-19 testing for students and staff. Needless to say, we lost a lot of nurses both during and after the last school year. (I went to a small school that does not need an assistant). So, this year they announced that they would be hiring LPNs, "temporarily," to cover vacant campuses. This makes all of us nurses nervous about our job security and pay. Also, there are a lot of emergencies that happen on school campuses that require critical thinking and assessment skills. I understand that they feel that this is better than having no one on a campus, but it rattles my cage.

I've been a school nurse for awhile, but this is my first year at elementary. I have issues with school staff who have dropped off toileting accidents when I have kids who are injured or ill and need constant supervision. Legally, I have issue with being expected to leave those kids to tackle bathroom issues. I won't do it. I will inconvenience the parents every time if I can get them on the phone.