I need your feedback and suggestions. Thank you in advance for always giving me your input on things that trouble me with my job !
Have you noticed and upsurge in students of elementary ages having incontinence issues ?
I'm talking urine and BM. I have large numbers of kids who range from Kindergarten to Sixth grade who are constantly in my clinic for soiling or wetting their clothes.
These are not occasional accidents either. These kids are coming in once and sometimes twice each day. I have many kids who have 504's specifically stating that they are to come to the private clinic bathroom each day and they are to sit on the toilet for 20-30 minutes so that they will become "potty trained".
These daily kids are tying up my only bathroom and I have no other source of water if I need to wash my hands or deal with a student with a nose bleed, loose tooth..etc.
I have a small storage closet that I keep many bags of clothes for upward of 15-20 students who's parents want me to house spare clothes for their child, in case they have an accident. I am over run with these bags and I am running out of room.
My clinic smells like a johnny house most of the day and students, teachers and parents make comments about the odor when they enter the clinic.
Teachers expect me to thoroughly clean up these kids when they poo themselves, but I do not. Will not. Cannot. I will however, lay out their clothes, wipes, bag for them to change themselves. If they have no supplies or they cannot do this task on their own, I will then call the parent to come clean them or take them home for a bath.
The expectation that teachers and parents have of me is unbelievable. I believe that, even with a witness/staff member being in your presence is not good enough in this day and age. Kids lie about disturbing things all of the time and there is no way that I will risk my license and lively hood on one false accusation of touching inappropriately or harming a child.
To say that this just doesn't happen these days, is to bury your head in the sand ! All it takes is one parent to turn to social media and construct lies about what you did to their little snowflake and your career is over.
Please friends, please tell me how you handle these situations. Tell me how this is solely a nursing problem. Why the school nurse. When did poop in the pants become more important than my diabetic's, my students with asthma, my students with a feeding tube.... ???
When I was at a school that had me policing dress code violations, I would keep the student's clothes until I received the borrowed clothing back. Not really an option with clothing that is soiled with stool.
Same here - "School Nurse, Potty-Trainer Extraordinaire" should be my official title. And no, I don't do any of the "just check his pants" stuff either. Hand them some flush-able wipes ( yes, we actually requested some from the PTO ) and point them to bathroom. It's kind of ridiculous....
Hey, I got MY eight children potty-trained. Doesn't seem fair that now I get to take on, you know, the whole world....
Lately I have been calling parents of these kids (fortunately in my area, at least one parent is usually at home during the day) - hoping that having them come up to school to wipe their kids butt, bring extra clothing and/or just plain come out and telling them their child smells of feces and needs a shower will inconvenience them enough to do something about it.
Specializes in med-surg, IMC, school nursing, NICU.
I have a first grader who poop his pants almost weekly and doesn't say anything. He walks around until pieces of it start falling out of his pant legs and then denies it when the teacher asks if he had an accident. Last week they had to clear the entire classroom because someone stepped it in and it got into the carpet and on most of the tile. His father insists he has a GI problem but all signs point to behavioral. All the "clean" undies that get sent in from home are stained on the butt so it doesn't appear to be just a school thing, either. He told the speech therapist that he "goes like this" (crouches in the corner) and poops his pants at home. There are several other issues going on and DSS had been involved.
This child came again this afternoon. Second time this week.
I would agree if my in laws were still alive. FYI Abena are the best adult brief bar none. Unfortunately they are $2 each but hold over a liter of fluid.
Unfortunately they are $2 each but hold over a liter of fluid.
A liter?!? Good grief!
A few months ago I bought new sheets. After one Amazon search, all I saw were ads for sheets! It was like google was saying "Looks like your ready to open a bedding store! Here's everything you need!"
But seriously, a liter of fluid? How does that even happen?
When I had to do a 24 hour urine collection while pregnant (pre-eclampsia) I turned in 5 liters and they said "It was only supposed to be for ONE day"
....it was one day. I just craved cold, cold water all day long. (The cold is significant because I don't generally drink/eat cold things when I'm not pregnant. My teeth are too sensitive. So I would drink the cold water and then whimper because my teeth hurt)
Oh Lord have I had to deal with this this year! Not too bad but I have had a couple of situations where the parents aren't really taking it seriously and somehow everyone started trying to turn it into my responsibility to essentially potty train these children. You better believe I put a stop to that discussion immediately. It's difficult because one of these children has a syndrome that causes some cognitive disabilities and, I'm sure, probably has an effect on her inability to control her bladder and the other child is a selective mute whose refusal to use the bathroom his parents and therapist believe is purely behavioral. Doesn't change the fact that I ain't cleaning him up every day.
:roflmao:.
kidzcare
3,393 Posts
When I was at a school that had me policing dress code violations, I would keep the student's clothes until I received the borrowed clothing back. Not really an option with clothing that is soiled with stool.