MANATEE — When Amanda Reed stopped by the Oneco Elementary clinic last week to update her son’s medication, the school nurse said her son had been in an incident.
“Kyle got a bit overheated on the playground today,” registered nurse Mary Fischer said she told Reed.
When his mom asked Kyle what happened, he told her 15 to 20 girls were chasing him trying to get him to kiss a girl.
Keep running, kid, Reed thought. We don’t need you to catch the flu. Especially when there’s a only one RN and an aide to take care of the school’s 680 kids.
And not only does Fischer oversee Oneco’s 680 students, she splits her days as the nurse at Stewart Elementary, a school with 453 students.
Schools across Florida fall short of national standards for nurse staffing levels, raising concerns, considering the prospect of a swine flu outbreak in the schools.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says schools should have one nurse for every 750 students.
A 2008 survey by the National Association of School Nurses found that Florida has one registered nurse for every 2,605 students. Nationally, each school nurse cares for 1,151 students on average.
The Manatee County School District currently has 30 R.N.’s. 46 L.P.N.’s and 12 aides for its 53 schools and its 42,000 students.
Its seven high schools each have one full-time R.N.
At elementary and middle school levels, each nurse works at two campuses. When an R.N. is not at one of their two schools, an L.P.N. or aide is there to help.
For this school year, the district is paying $3 million for their salaries. Under a joint program with the Manatee County Health Department, the department provides additional clinic staff. They put in about $725,000 toward the nurses and their aides, too.
“Do we need more nurses? Absolutely,” said FASN President Kathleen Rose. “The ability to give excellent care is compromised, the safety of our students is at risk, the future health of our state’s children is in question.”
The association, she said, has an ongoing effort to educate the public and government officials about the need for more nurses.
“We have spoken to the governor’s cabinet on Children and Youth three times, we made a trip to Tallahassee for School Health Advocacy Day to inform our legislators, we are putting information in school newsletters and going to PTA/PTO meetings about health issues, and informing parents when their nurse is there, which is often only one day a week,” Troxler said.
Fischer, a 16-year-veteran at the school clinic, said that since the first day of school this year she’s seen an average of 30 children each school day.
The nurse shortage, she said, scares her.
“We are their first line of defense until they can see their primary care physician,” she said. “On top of that, a lot of them don’t even have one because they don’t have health insurance, and the clinics are overcrowded. It’s sad.”
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