Tube Feedings

Kittery · Mar 21, 2018

I personally do not (just because there isn't a need to), but in TX we can and many of the other nurses in our district do. Many of our teachers do the tube feedings themselves daily, with proper training and occasional check-ins/reviews by the nurse.

OldDude · Mar 21, 2018

I delegate the task to a staff member I train. The procedure isn't done in my clinic, but another private designated area.

KKEGS, MSN, RN · Mar 21, 2018

In MN I can delegate this task to an UAP and we have done that in the past in my district. We don't have any UAPs who do them this year as I find that more and more often paras and teachers are getting increasingly uncomfortable performing these types of cares and don't accept the delegation. Could be the increase in unreasonable, demanding parents this year. These tasks are falling back on the LPNs and RNs who work in our district and, in one case, we had to hire an agency LPN to provide 1 on 1 care for a student with a G tube because she was constantly trying to pull it out and pull it apart and the paras didn't want to deal with it.

ruby_jane, BSN, RN · Mar 21, 2018

What does your policy say? A field trip is part of the free and appropriate education of the student, and if it's only an RN task the district will have to find an RN (or parent) to go along, right?

iggywench, BSN, RN · Mar 21, 2018

I do delegate those to trained staff here in TX. I had a student two years ago with orders for water via G-button, and I was able to delegate that to my clinic aide. More than one year, I've had a student in our Life Skills class with tube feedings. I will train them initially, then monitor periodically, and the feedings are done in the classroom.

Would it be possible for the mom to go on the field trip, if you are not comfortable, or have someone to delegate that task to?

SaltineQueen · Mar 21, 2018

I can delegate that in IN to a UAP.