Yet another idiotic zero tolerance decision

[KnitShoni]

Besides, I think you guys are forgetting how manipulative and sneaky children can be. You really think kids don't share or sell their meds? Really?

Or steal them?

[AdminAssistant]

That too, KnitShoni. Better for all of it to be locked up with the nurse.

[linguist]

Every school I've ever attended up through high school only had one nurse serving the entire school. Say that only 10% of the student population has medication, that still leaves easily 50 prescriptions the nurse has to keep track of, on top of serving the other medical needs of the students and staff. This leads to the possibility of prescriptions getting lost (happened to me in middle school) or being given the wrong medication (happened in elementary).

And since allowing any exceptions ever would apparently be discriminatory, what of those students who need immediate access to medication, when minutes count? What I'm thinking of primarily is students with asthma who need their inhalers immediately when an attack occurs, and those with certain seizure disorders. For example, I've suffered severe migraines my entire life. When I was younger, they were so severe they caused seizures. I had a medication that I took at the onset of a migraine to prevent the seizures. By at the onset I mean just that. If I didn't take it within about five minutes of the first aura, it was entirely ineffective, and it was almost guaranteed that a seizure was soon to follow. When I attended a school that required my medications to be locked up with the nurse, it took 10 minutes or more to first get permission to go to the nurse, wait if she had another student in with her already, then wait further while she dug out my medication. I'd been taking this medication almost my entire life, and I knew better than anyone when I needed it and how to dose myself, but during the entirety of that year I never once got my medication in time to stave off the seizure. When we moved the following year and the school I transferred to allowed me to carry my meds with me, I never once had one, because I always had immediate access when needed. When we moved again a few years later, and all medications had to go through the nurse, my parents chose not to disclose that I was on any, and I continued to carry them on me at all times.

[Andara Bledin]

That too, KnitShoni. Better for all of it to be locked up with the nurse.

The nurse that often isn't even on campus and whose position is covered by an unlicensed assistant?

A case from 2009 where a student died because proper medication was not administered. (pdf)

Highlights include the following:
* Schools don’t routinely have nurses on site, as they rotate between buildings.
* Each elementary school gets 1 to 21/2 days a week of nursing time.
* The health clerk told Midkiff-Bray she didn’t know whether Mercedes was breathing and that no CPR was done. School Principal Don Garrick later told the investigator, “We are not medical people.”

The child in question had known allergy issues including severe asthma. She had both an inhaler and an EpiPen in the nurse's office. The clerk who covered for the nurse was unprepared to deal with an emergency and the EpiPen was never utilized, despite it being in the student's "valid care plan." She suffered full cardiac arrest prior to the arrival of paramedics and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Zero tolerance for medication is only acceptable if there is proper medical staff on had at all times. Otherwise, we're going to continue to see children dying needlessly.

^-.-^

[linguist]

The child in question had known allergy issues including severe asthma. She had both an inhaler and an EpiPen in the nurse's office. The clerk who covered for the nurse was unprepared to deal with an emergency and the

oooh, epipen. I hadn't even thought about that, but that's another where immediate access is required when it's needed, and minutes if not seconds count.

[Rageaholic]

This is why I'm against over restrictive policies. If you have medicine that your life depends on and you go to those schools, your life is in their hands. Instead of putting all the pressure on the school staff to get the medicine before they die. Why not just let them have the medicine they need? Sure, it's not fair and all that, but it's also not fair that those students have to rely on the medicine in the first place.

And kids abusing medicine is a stupid reason not to let them have it on them. Yes, keep the medicine out of the hands of those who need it, it's for their protection! Never mind the fact that THEIR LIFE COULD DEPEND ON THE MEDICINE THAT THEY ARE "PROTECTING" THEM FROM.

[Greenday]

An epipen is not medicine that you have to take daily or that you can easily abuse without getting caught. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to take that with you. Inhaler is something you need on a moments notice so it's another you should be able to take with you. My schools always allowed for those since they were time critical and possibily life saving.

Also, the problem with Andara Bledin's story isn't that meds were locked up in the nurse's office. The problem is that they are incompetant morons who have stuff who don't show up when they should be there. Any nurse who would only be there 1 to 2.5 days a week wouldn't be hired at the schools I went to. That makes no sense. We even had an athletic trainer who was there every school day, plus weekends if any sports were going on.

[Racket_Man]

Every school I've ever attended up through high school only had one nurse serving the entire school. Say that only 10% of the student population has medication, that still leaves easily 50 prescriptions the nurse has to keep track of, on top of serving the other medical needs of the students and staff. This leads to the possibility of prescriptions getting lost (happened to me in middle school) or being given the wrong medication (happened in elementary).

.

those must have been nice well off school districts becasue most of the schools I have attended in the past or my daughter attented did NOT have a full time school nurse.

a single school dedicated nurse was deemed too expensive. and as a "cost saving meaqsure" the "nurse" rotated between at least 3 different schools (possibly more) spending maybe only a half day in each place

school districts have had a hard time of it in the last 35 years and this is only one of their cost savings plans.

[linguist]

An epipen is not medicine that you have to take daily or that you can easily abuse without getting caught. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to take that with you. Inhaler is something you need on a moments notice so it's another you should be able to take with you. My schools always allowed for those since they were time critical and possibily life saving.

But then you have two separate sets of rules for differing circumstances, which is discriminatory using your logic.

[Andara Bledin]

Any nurse who would only be there 1 to 2.5 days a week wouldn't be hired at the schools I went to. That makes no sense. We even had an athletic trainer who was there every school day, plus weekends if any sports were going on.

Welcome to the world of school funding cuts, and the 21st century.

It's a rare school that actually has a full time nurse, and even when your school does have one, what happens if you have an attack when the nurse is at lunch? Oh, too bad, you should have timed your medical emergency better. 9.9

^-.-^

[Greenday]

But then you have two separate sets of rules for differing circumstances, which is discriminatory using your logic.

Immediate danger of death vs. non-life threatening isn't discrimination. It's common sense.

Saying someone who is chronically ill can carry there meds while someone who is just randomly sick with some kind of infection is.

[Andara Bledin]

Immediate danger of death vs. non-life threatening isn't discrimination. It's common sense.

But you said earlier:

If one set of kids have to be supervised while taking meds, everyone does. You can't make two separate sets of rules.

So which one is it?

^-.-^

[Greenday]

There's a big difference between needing medicine for immediately life threatening illness and just taking meds. It's justifiable to say those who need meds on the spot or will die can carry them around. It's not justifiable to say that just because you always have to take meds, you HAVE to be able to take them on your own.

[Bardmaiden]

On the inhalers stuff, I am an Asthmatic, if I have an attack my inhaler can be vital. I carry it on me at all times (mostly, yes I'm human and forget sometimes ). When I was at school my gym teacher decided that I didn't need to carry my inhaler and that it should be kept in her office which would be locked. So if I had an attack someone would have to run to the building up two flights of stairs and unlock her office find my inhaler run all the way back to me and find me possibly not breathing because it took so long.

I went home that night and told my parents. Because they were unable to come to school the next day my grandfather came, he went to the headmasters office and explained in very detailed terms how he didn't want his granddaughters medication taken from them. I never actually knew what was said but it resulted in a very sorry gym teacher and she never threatened my or my sisters inhalers again.