School Nurses

What the hell has happened to school nurses? When I was a kid, school nurses were concerned about the students they saw and did whatever they could to alleviate the suffering of those students. Now their job seems to be to say what they can to get the kid back to class. The whole attitude has changed. The assumption from the beginning now is that the kids are faking and it is up to the kids to prove there really is something wrong.

What alot of parents don't know is that not all school nurses are actually nurses! I have filled in at our local school district a few times. What I learned is that out of the 4 schools only 1 has an actual nurse! The other 3 has a nurse's aide. If there is an emergency, the nurse leaves the other school and comes to check out the problem. They may be close, but 10 mins is a long time if you have an arterial bleed or diabetic crises! When I questioned the safety of this, I was told that alot of school districts do this now to save money! I am not sure that I want the budget balanced by cutting back on my kids healthcare while they are at school!

Just a few examples of issues I have personally had:

• My daughter broke her arm a couple weeks ago. I filled out the necessary forms for my daughter to have Ibuprofen at school. She was on Vicodin at home, but I did not want to have to send Vicodin to school. I wrote out the doctors instructions. Tylenol or Vicodin then in 2 hrs Ibuprofen and in 2hrs Tylenol/Vicodin, etc. Having worked in a doctor's office I knew this was common for severenpain or high fever. The first day she went to the nurse at 9am (like I told her) and when the nurse found out she had Vicodin at 7am, she refused to give her the Ibuprofen. She would not give it unless it had been at least 4 hrs. I was irate. So I called the doctor and they faxed orders for her to have 1/2 a Vicodin 4 times a day. This was the 1 week after the injury, mind you. My mother, who is also a nurse, drove the Vicodin to the school with the doctor's order, but they wouldn't let her administer it because she was not the parent. After phone calls and a faxed note from me it was 12:30pm. She tried to refuse to give it because my note said 12pm. My mom had a fit and she got her meds. I kept my daughter home for a week after she reinjured her arm because I did not trust that she would get her meds without an argument. She went back this week and when she went to get her Vicodin (its now been 2 1/2 weeks) the nurse refused her again because she felt that she should be weaning off it by now! She has a doctors order to have it for the first 4 weeks but she overruled the doctor?
• My nephew was injured on the playground at last recess. (1st grade) He was taken to the nurse's office and was given an ice pack and made to sit there until school was over. The nurse was going to send him home on the bus, but he was still crying, so after over 1 1/2 hrs his mother was called. He had fractured and dislocated his elbow and was taken to emergency surgery that night!
• My youngest daughter has asthma. She told her teacher she was having trouble breathing and was sent to the nurse's office. She used her inhaler then was sent home on the bus. She was so bad by the time she got home we had to go to the ER. Her oxygen level was 88%! She needed 2 breathing treatments to be able to breathe normally again.
• My middle daughter suffers from seizures. She had a seizure in class but it was not obvious so no one noticed til she was staggering down the hall and was not coherent. The nurse got her a lunch tray and told her she needed to eat. One look at her medical profile and she would have known she had a seizure disorder, but she just told her to eat and went back to her desk. After an hr when my daughter still wasn't 'right', they finally called me. Every year since I send a form to her teachers describing what her seizures look like, what to do, etc. I do not trust the nurse to recognize a seizure when she sees one.

I could go on and on. I have talked to parents who have had kids sent home on the bus, with no call from the school nurse, with broken bones, blood sugars way high/low, and with fevers of 103. Why have a nurse that does nothing for the students? If the school insists on using aides in place of actual nurses, then these people need some kind of training and need to be required to read the medical profiles we have to fill out every year. Basically, if there is no fever, excessive bleeding or vomit when they can send the kids home, they tell them to lie down for 20 mins and send them back to class.

I am sure that there are some school nurses out there that care about their students and do a wonderful job, but they are not in our school district that is for sure! So parents beware! You send your kids to school thinking that if something goes wrong there is adequate medical care to handle the situation. But the nurse you have may not be a nurse at all! Educate yourself and ask your local school district if you actually have a nurse or an untrained aide!