Nurses in public schools (Charlotte, Snow Hill: elementary schools, live, transport)

[slvrcts04]

From the information that I have gathered for some Union county schools, it seems that the school nurse is only there for 1 or 2 full days. What happens if a child gets sick or injured on the other days? Who takes care of them?

[Bethanytedder]

I don't know about there specifically but where I live at the parents are notified to come and pick up the child. The EMT's did go out to the school to attempt to get something out of Brianna's nose once but when that failed, I had to go and get her and take her to the doctor myself. Quite frankly, I would rather take my own kids to their own doctor than for a school nurse with no medical history taking care of my children. Now there is a health nurse on site at the high school but from my understanding in Greene County at least she is there for other issues like pregnancy and STD education and the like. In Greene County, which is about 4-5 hours to the northeast of Charlotte, they just simply either call the EMT's and have the child transported to the hospital that is either the closest in a big emergency or the hospital of the parents' choice. One good thing about where I live at, Snow Hill is situationed almost in the center of four other counties' hospitals. But most people have a preference one way or the other. We use Pitt County to the northeast of us. Otherwise the parent is notified and the child is picked up by the family. In Wayne County, they had a first aid room that was manned by volunteers. Since I was a nurse back in the 80's, when my turn came to volunteer, I had the honor of checking the children for head lice. There is probably someone at the school that is trained to deal with acute emergencies. But as for a full time RN, I don't know of a school at least around here that has one.

[FL little foot]

It still amazes me how different things are. We have 2 full time staffed nurses at the elementary schools, and at least 1 in the middle and high schools. They administer medicine to the kids, check their temperature, band-aid's for the recess scraped and bleeding elbow's and knees. They even used to do a throat culture, at least when I was in school. The kids go to the nurses office if they have to do a #2 real bad. When a kid doesn't feel well in school where do they go? Teachers here just send them to the nurses office. I remember watching dateline one night about schools in CA. I think there was 1 nurse for like 30 schools, she would travel back and forth, 1/2 day here, 1/2 day there. She looked exausted. It was the women who ran the front office who would bandage up the kids. and she looked exausted too. Also, the nurse performs hearing tests every year, I think vision testing also. Not that they really need to, thats what the pediatrician is for.