I just learned that most schools have nurses.

[rebcoola]

1 hour ago, happysmileylady said:

I am curious, are the kids allowed to carry their own regular meds throughout the day?  Such as say, ADHD meds, epi pens, or maybe NSAIDS if they get a headache or something?

No the only exceptions I've heard of are an emergency inhaler or epi-pen.  Everything else comes from a nurse.   Zero tolerance on drugs includes things like aspirin you don't have permission and get it from the nurse 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

 

Well, yeah, that's always how it's been in the schools I know of, all of which have nurses.  But bolt was referring to schools in her area never having nurses and how medical care would be handled through a medical clinic or whatever.  So if schools in that area don't have nurses and students needing medical care are sent to a clinic or whatever, I was wondering how the schools in those situations handle those sorts of low level things.

Educational aide who handles health or a school secretary for things like giving a kid their ADHD meds, or blood sugar testing. Usually multiple people will be trained for emergency meds and if the student does not self-carry, there will be stocks around the school and one of those people would be expected to administer. I was one of them, which was terrifying. There was always someone with an EpiPen on breakfast and lunch duty. 

[Acorn]

In my preschool experience, the teacher carries and would administer epipen and inhalers. Some schools keep those locked in main office with school secretaries.

[QueenCat]

1 hour ago, happysmileylady said:

I am curious, are the kids allowed to carry their own regular meds throughout the day?  Such as say, ADHD meds, epi pens, or maybe NSAIDS if they get a headache or something?

No. Not even in high school. 

[maize]

The public school I attended in France had a school nurse.

I think the elementary school I spent a few months at in Virginia had one.

I can't remember one anywhere else.

Edited September 11, 2020 by maize

[Storygirl]

My mother was a school nurse during her second career (she was a teacher first, then went to nursing school later). When I was in elementary school, there always seemed to be a nurse in the office when I needed to go there for stomach aches or if I fell ill while at school. My mom later worked for two different school districts, and by that time, she served as the nurse for the entire district and had to travel among all of the elementary, middle, and high schools. She was responsible for making sure each child's immunizations were up to date but not in charge of giving any immunizations. She had to do lice checks, if there was an outbreak. She administered or helped arrange vision and hearing checks and gave out little cups of flouride treatments. Keeping up to date on all of these things meant that she spent a lot more time doing paperwork than interacting with sick children. If she was not in a building when a child felt ill, the school secretaries would hand out things like ibuprofen. She never talked about having children with chronic medical needs under her care or having to deal with feeding tubes, etc., so either she didn't have medically fragile children, or they must have had other aides assigned to them.

If children were sick during the day, she wouldn't do anything to treat them, other than offering a place for them to lay down or handing out simple OTC meds or their prescribed meds that the family had turned in to the office. She would call parents to take them home, and if the kids needed more care, they had to go to their own doctor. She didn't function in any kind of diagnostic way but would just refer kids to get treatment from their own physician, if needed.

My children's public school now has one district nurse. But, interestingly, there is a team of athletic trainers.

[KungFuPanda]

21 hours ago, QueenCat said:

I grew up in the county you live in. We had fulltime nurses in the 70s and 80s. 

Well, yeah, because it’s a city. 😬

5 hours ago, happysmileylady said:

I am curious, are the kids allowed to carry their own regular meds throughout the day?  Such as say, ADHD meds, epi pens, or maybe NSAIDS if they get a headache or something?

When I was in school, your mom just put any medicine you needed to take in your lunchbox and you took it at lunch. We were allowed to carry our own ibuprofen at school and give our friend a midol. 
 

I knew school nurses existed. I just didn’t realize EVERYONE but me had them.  If you needed first aid, you were sent to whomever coached some sort of sport or a gym teacher. If you were sick you put your head down until someone picked you up early. 
 

I once drove my daughter around the block to give her something for cramps because handing her the pills in the school building involved paperwork.