Supporting Your Child's School Nurse During COVID-19

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

This is a plea or maybe a please? ... to those of you in health care who have students in school during Covid-19

I have no idea at all what your job entails and I'm sure as heck not going to trash you. For those of you on the front line, hats off to you! You have seen the good (?), the bad and the ugly of C-19 in the health care system. You have worked crazy hours doing something that I couldn't do, as I have not worked in a hospital in over 30 years.

However, I have worked in the public school system since the 90’s and things have changed dramatically over the years. We manage children with high complex medical issues; daily tube feeds, daily monitoring of our many insulin dependent diabetics from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade. Students with cerebral palsy, spinal muscular atrophy, seizure disorders and everything in between. Add in gym, recess and classroom injuries as well as routine illness, chasing immunization info, beginning of school year paperwork...the list goes on and on.

And, then it came

C-19 with a gazillion health related articles, opinions, statements, and counter statements on the cause and care of C-19. Health notices from our state public health offices and the CDC. Some agreeing, some not. Some directives were changing at a head snapping speed. Many Zoom meetings happen to try and bring all the information together.

All of this, while many of us were working from home, remotely. Trying to plan for a return to school that would be as safe and as mitigated as possible. Trying to monitor the health of  “our kids” when we couldn’t see them in person. Trying to follow up to homes who did not have cell, telephone or internet or heat, hot water or food, (but that's another story).

We were planning for the day we were to be back in school, with your kids. We missed them!! This included countless hours of developing a mitigation plan, planning for isolation rooms (many in schools where the health office is no bigger than a closet). Planning on how to protect the kids, staff (and ourselves). Thinking about what a positive case in our school or district means.

First and foremost the impact on the students' health, their classmates, teachers and us, as well as their family and others who may have been directly exposed. Nurses also worked all Spring and Summer with their local and state public health offices, planning for what C-19 looks like, and how we will respond when the possibility becomes a reality. Plans were made for when illness (and it has and will continue to do so) presents in the health office. State and Federal guidelines were developed, public health department, committees and school nurse associations looked long and hard at the information, and extrapolated what they felt they needed.  

School nurses were given guidance and directives on what happens when a child presents with any of a plethora of symptoms related to a C-19 diagnosis, many of which were previously handled in school with no issues. Those days are gone...for now. Some states are very stringent and some have left (very little) wiggle room in trying to separate an ongoing (allergies) issue from truly suspect case of C-19.

Many of us are back

Yahoo! Some of us are back full-time face-to-face, many in a hybrid model and still many are remote. Teachers have prepared classroom seating charts, hallways are directional, movement in the building is staggered to de-densify the population in any one area. Masks are worn. All absences are followed up by the the nurses, often even the kids doing remote learning. And, those of here are still doing all the other stuff, often with no other medical or secretarial support.

Thus, here-in lies my plea ...

... for #please (and maybe a #thank you), for supporting us when we call and ask you to pick up your child, as soon as humanly possible, and get them to a provider or a testing center. We have been told in no uncertain terms that suspected cases need to be out of our building! You don't want YOUR child exposed to someone else, do you? We don't either. 

I beg of you, leave the snide remarks behind, don’t tell us what crap this is, and how stupid the rules are. We did not make them. But we are going to abide by them.

Thank us (or not) for doing our very best. Because we are; to protect everyone in a building that may be as small as 100 kids or as big as 3500 kids. Some of us cover multiple buildings in a day, and sadly, some schools have no nurse at all. 

Please, we are all in this together and we school nurses need our colleagues' support and understanding.

#bewell
#staysafe

Resources

Why Are Our School Nurses Disappearing?

Nurses Are on the Virus Front Lines. But Many Schools Don't Have One

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

We did not make the rules but we're going to abide by them! You preached a word, friend.

Please also note: Since May, the recommendation for someone exposed in close contact to a known case of COVID (or someone highly symptomatic) has been to quarantine for 14 days. This is not news. Yes, it's a pain in the bahookie. But that hasn't changed in five months.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

2 hours ago, ruby_jane said:

We did not make the rules but we're going to abide by them! You preached a word, friend.

Please also note: Since May, the recommendation for someone exposed in close contact to a known case of COVID (or someone highly symptomatic) has been to quarantine for 14 days. This is not news. Yes, it's a pain in the bahookie. But that hasn't changed in five months.

Exactly! Thx!

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

https://allnurses.com/supporting-your-childs-school-nurse-t725741/?tab=comments#comment-7701014

I was feeling frustrated the other day!

[CommunityRNBSN, BSN, RN]

My son’s school nurse called this week and she was so apologetic. “Mr So and so sent your son down here with a cough. But he’s fine, right?  It’s allergies?  These teachers are sending everybody down for everything at the moment.”