Family points to school nurse shortage in death

[The Straight Story]

With budget cuts at many schools across the country, school nurse positions have often been slashed or disappeared altogether.

On "The Early Show," CBS News Correspondent Priya David Clemens shared the story of one family who says they suffered a horrible tragedy because there was no nurse at their daughter's school.

Clemens reported that, in Tacoma, Wash., on October 7, 2008, 10-year-old Mercedes Mears rode the bus to Clover Creek Elementary with her sister just like any other day.

Mercedes' mother, Jeannette Mears, recalled, "She left for school at about 8:05 and 8:06 in the morning. She was fine. The next thing I knew, I got a phone call from the school. 'Mercedes had an asthma attack and we called the EMTs."'

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/14/earlyshow/living/parenting/main20079425.shtml

[iwishiwas]

1. WI just cut many nurse positions also. see todays Milwaukee journal sentinel.

[surrealAmerican]

2. The family is right.

If that school had a nurse on sight, that child would still be alive. Removing school nurses is a reckless move that disregards the health and safety of the students, and the states should not allow it.

k & r.

[hedgehog]

3. Us older folk may think the school nurse does nothing but bandage scraped knees.

My sister is a school nurse. Her situation may be a little different, since technically she is employed by the health department.

She is in charge of keeping track of immunizations as kids move in and out of the area. She also has a full plate of daily medications to administer: insulin, ADHD drugs and even psychotropics. She has to work with both families and family doctors.

[ejpoeta]

4. exactly. how many kids have allergies to foods these days? how many are on meds? i have a kid who

takes ritalin. I give it to her before school so I don't have to send any to the school or fill out that form either. But if I had her take it at school I would fill out a form and the nurse would administer it. How many meds I wonder does the nurse administer just at our rinky dink school. I bet a lot. They are always busy down there that is for sure. Plus they handle all the absences there. IF my kid is absent I have to call the nurses office to let them know she won't be in. And if I don't they are the ones that call me and inform me she isn't there. When my 12 year old got her period and had problems with her attire because of it.... it was the nurse who called me and I went and picked Emily up. The nurse was very nice and helped Emily out on more than one occasion.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. They used to do that mostly

but these days.. scrapped knees is the least of their duties, fully agreed.

[WatsonT]

6. "daily medications to administer: insulin, ADHD drugs "

A sad indicator of the way things have gone in this country.

Nurses are now used to keep obese kids docile and alive rather than patching up the normal wear and tear an active child is expected to receive.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. Would you rather Type I diabetic children die instead of receive insulin?

I think you are blaming ALL fat kids for their health problems, including obesity.

Glandular/autoimmune disorders have skyrocketed in the past few decades b/c of the weird chemicals in our food.

More people have thyroid problems than have diabetes, but you never hear any ad campaigns or advocacy groups asking for donations for research into over-active and under-active thyroids.

If your thyroid dies, and you don't take thyroid hormone pills, you will DIE in a few years in a myxedema coma.

I know. It almost happened to me when an idiot doc took me off thyroid pills.

[WatsonT]

8. Yeah, because clearly the spike in kids on insulin is do to a sudden increase

in people who are born with it, not diet.

You can always site the one or two kids with a legitimate problem to excuse the other 100,000.


But you and I both know that the vast majority of these cases are curable by exercise and diet.

Evolution could not have functioned so fast as to give us this epidemic of kids with "glandular" problems in the span of a generation. It just doesn't work that way, even if we were selecting for congenital obesity.