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California judge rules only nurses can give insulin to kids

Ohanian Comment: I
think it would be a fine thing if every school
had a school nurse and a health center on the
premises. But I don't favor this because I
think they're needed to give insulin injections
to kids. From the time I started first grade,
my mother made it very clear to the school
staff that as a juvenile diabetic, I was
responsible for myself. I'd been told what to
do and was trusted to do it. One of my
strongest childhood memories is overhearing her
tell my second grade teacher who tried to
interfere with my lunch choices, "Susan knows
her diet restrictions. She is in charge." The
teacher had tried to prevent me from taking
dessert. I always took dessert because kids
loved it when I gave it away.

I simply cannot fathom why a 12-year-old can't
inject himself. It certainly does these kids no
favors to insist that they can't go to school
if a nurse isn't there.

By Melissa Nix

A Sacramento Superior Court ruling Friday marks
a major shift in the treatment of nearly 14,000
California schoolchildren with diabetes.
Judge Lloyd Connelly sided with the California
School Nurses Organization, the American Nurses
Association, the California Nurses Association
and other nursing groups in their challenge to
a 2007 rule that enabled trained school staff –
not just school nurses – to administer insulin
shots to diabetic kids.

"This is a big setback," said Jim Stone, who
has a 12-year-old diabetic son and has fought,
with other parents, to expand the number of
people who can administer insulin to diabetic
children in public schools.

There are 2,800 nurses in the 9,800 public
schools across the state.

In a class-action lawsuit filed in 2005,
parents had argued that with so few school
nurses left in California, they were having to
keep their diabetic children out of school or
leave jobs to administer insulin shots
themselves.

The California Department of Education settled
with parents in 2007 and sent an advisory to
districts throughout the state urging them to
allow trained, unlicensed school staff to give
the shots if a nurse or parent wasn't
available.

Friday, Connelly ruled that the advisory is in
conflict with state law that says only licensed
nurses can administer injections.

Nancy Spradling, the executive director of the
California School Nurses Organization said that
"state law and the Business and Professions
Code and the Nurse Practice Act all state
clearly what falls under the category of
nursing, which includes administering
injections."

Improper administration can lead to low blood
sugar, which can result in coma and death, she
said.

The American Diabetes Association joined the
four families who filed the original lawsuit in
2005. Together, they alleged that diabetic
public schoolchildren were not getting the
federally mandated care they needed during the
school day, in violation of the Americans with
Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of
1973, which ensure disabled students' rights to
receive a public education.

"I thought the (2007) compromise was good,"
said David Vollmar, who administers the school
nurse program for Elk Grove Unified School
District. "Parents were holding their
(diabetic) children out of school. These kids
weren't getting an education … This (ruling)
will make it harder for a number of districts."
The intent of the 2007 agreement, said James
Wood, the attorney who represented the Diabetes
Association, was to lessen the burden of
parents, guardians and grandparents whose
diabetic children attended a public school
without a school nurse.

"I'm literally sick to my stomach," said parent
Lisa Shenson, who has a 17-year-old diabetic
daughter and attended Friday's hearing. "There
are thousands of children in California who
(now) will not be able to safely attend
school."

Fawzia Keval, principal of Elk Grove Unified's
Prairie Elementary, said she shares a nurse a
couple of days a month with other district
schools.

"Sometimes, parents can be really hard to get a
hold of," Keval said. "If a child's blood sugar
is off, and they need a shot immediately, it
can be hard to get parents to come in. Luckily,
we had our nurse on campus that day when this
happened."

Spradling, with the School Nurses Organization,
said "districts need to be told that school
nurses are not a luxury, but a necessity, and
with so many children with chronic conditions,
they have to find a way to fund them."
According to the Disability Rights and
Education Defense Fund, California has one of
the highest ratios of students to school nurses
in the country: 2,150 to 1.






— Melissa Nix
Sacramento Bee
2008-11-15
http://www.sacbee.com/education/story/1399564.html

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