JaClasse

I need a quick response on this one! We are a small private camp. Our sessions generally have about 90-130 campers and most are healthy. There is one nurse on duty 24/7. We have a 8 year old camper that is wanting to come to camp. She is diabetic and wears an insulin pump. Our problem is that her doctor has ordered her BG to be checked at midnight and 3 AM (along with at meals and 2 hours after meals). I can not ask a counselor to take this responsibility. If she would have to get up every night for this, she would never be able to function for the rest of the girls in her cabin. The same goes for the nurse. I have contacted the doctor. She is insistent that the BG's be done at the night times. (The day times would not be a problem for us). The mother does not think it's necessary. We have tried to think of different options including: 1) Having a staff member stay with her one-on-one (We do not always have a staff member available, so are hesitant to set this precedence) 2) Have a friend/family member stay with her. Her mother does not have anyone and this would also cost the camp extra money. 3) Have the camper go home for night. They live close enough to do this, however the mother doesn't want her to be singled out, like this. 4) Kindly tell the parents that we are just not set up to meet the needs of this camper. I'd like your input. How have you handled (or how would you handle) this situation?

Thank you all for your responses. I think we got the problem solved (at least it is much improved). For the first 2 sessions, when we were seeing a lot of knuckle injuries, they were using a volleyball. They have since switched to a large rubber ball. They still get the bounce that the kids desire, but the kids don't have to get their hand so low to the ground. We have had very few injuries since.

Thanks. I'm not sure how the game is played either. I do know that they want the ball to be able to bounce. And, I do know that the kids absolutely love it. It's one of the more popular activities at camp. Even after being injured, they go back for more! (game, that is :) )

Are any of you at camps that have "ga ga" ball as an acitivity? If so, are you seeing a lot of campers with scraped knuckles? Ours is played on cement and the younger campers frequently misjudge the distance of their hand to the pavement and are getting scraped up. My understanding is that the game does not play well on grass or dirt (I'm not sure dirt would be any better...just dirtier wounds). Are any of your camps using an alternative surface, and if so...what?

Thanks for the input. It is a privately-owned Christian camp with 7-8 sessions in the summer for grades 2-12. Campers pre-register online starting in January, but then update their registration when they arrive. Most are basically healthy kids. Some arrive with their parents. However many car-pool and are not with their parents. There is only one Health Professional (it can be an EMT or RN) on duty 24/7 for that session. Registration is a mad scramble to get medications checked in - it is difficult to ask what questions we need to, much less have time to examine each camper. I do enlist the help of a staff member, but we rely A LOT on parents/campers giving us straight answers. (We do document their answers) I think our guidelines for medications are right in line with what you are saying. I am just mainly concerned about when to refuse campers admission and when to send them home. I hate to see them miss out and yet I know that for the "health of all" it is a necessity. With only one Health Professional, it is impossible to care for ill campers for any extended period of time. That's why protocols would be nice - it would give me (us) guidelines, so that emotions wouldn't have as much of an opportunity to "muddy" things up, if you know what I mean.

I have been asked to help write specific health guidelines for entry into a camp session. We presently ask, at registration, whether the camper has had fever, diarrhea, vomiting or any contagious disease (including headlice) within the last 24 hours. But, then we have no protocol on what to do if they have had any of these symptoms. I'd be interested in knowing what protocols, for these situations, are being implimented by other camps. Most all of our campers come from within an hour's distance. If they are not having symptoms, would you go ahead and admit them? If they are still having symptoms, what would you do?

Thank you for your response. My understanding is that we do not fall under HIPAA since we do not collect 3rd party funds for health care. Regardless, I agree that confidentiality is an issue. Our health center is at quite a distance from the dining hall, so in order to catch up with their group, campers would have to get up early and come for meds, which also makes them very identifiable. It seems to be the best time to take them, so that they don't miss out on any activity or are separated from their group. We do try and set up in the back of the cafeteria and have them come when others are taking trays up, etc. It is definitely not an ideal situation. I'll keep thinking on this one! I appreciate your suggestion on the red dots. We did this as well, and it was the only thing that saved us! And I agree...the original container, properly labeled, is a must. As far as the supper meds...we had several ADHD meds (to be given BID) as well as allergy meds. Breakfast and PM dinner seems to be our busiest times.

Camp has started! We had 40 campers come in with medications this first week - most of these with multiple meds. We had 2 nurses doing the health registering of the total 130 campers. Registration was from 3:30-4:30PM with most arriving around 4:00 PM. Needless to say, we nurses held up the registration line with all our questions. Parents do preregister using UltraCamp online, however, most had done this in January and many of the meds had changed since that time. Does anyone have any suggestions on how they make this work without parents/campers getting frustrated by having to wait in line? Also, with registration ending at 4:30, this gave me only 30 minutes to get meds ready for the 5:00 PM supper administration time (There were 19 needing meds at this time). I have talked to the Director and they are considering moving supper back to 6:00 PM for the next session's registration day.) How do the rest of you administer your meds? The campers here do not come to the health center for administration. Logistically, it works better for me to take the meds to the dining hall at meal time. Do any of you have this situation? And if so, how do you prepare the meds for administration? Trays? Med cups? All the camper's meds in their original containers in a baggie? (This is what I did the first day....way too time consuming). Help!