School nurses are a vital resource

A child hampered by a bothersome headache is also hampered from learning. A student sitting in the back of a classroom can’t conquer fractions if he can’t see the board. A fall here, a bruise or scrape there — it’s bound to happen during the course of a given school day, and it’s all in a day’s work for Georgia’s school nurses. But a new state budget proposal may nix school nurses altogether in some public schools unless local systems can find ways to fund them on their own. Though our state legislature is facing difficult budget decisions, this particular cost-saving proposal must somehow be thwarted for the sake of our children’s health and well-being, and their overall safety during the school day.

Ga. Gov. Sonny Perdue’s proposed $20.2 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2010 redirects $30 million in funding for school nurses into the state allotment funds for schools — but even those funds are likely to be reduced — which will leave nurses’ pay to be covered through local property tax increases or cuts in other areas. Georgia lawmakers faced with the task of addressing the governor’s budget proposal need to remember: A sick child cannot learn.

According to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta statistics, 18 percent of children under the age of 18 in the United States suffer from some kind of chronic medical condition. Whether it be asthma, diabetes or food allergies, these conditions frequently warrant attention during the course of a school day and in some cases, how they are addressed can have serious and fatal consequences. In addition, school nurses are trained to detect communicable diseases and either isolate or refer those students for further treatment. These nurses not only help students manage their diseases while at school (and thereby enable them to attend classes), they also detect problems and educate the students as well.

If our school nurses aren’t there to assess our children’s medical needs, who will? While others on staff may be trained handle minor medical issues, they should not be expected to be as knowledgeable on the more immediate or serious concerns that could potentially arise. Although we may all hesitate to think of the potential for serious consequences that may result, we all, particularly our state legislators should — and they should think long and hard before making the final say on this proposed cut.

In many instances, the school nurse is the first line of medical defense for students — oftentimes the most medical care some receive — an unfortunate sign of our times when many families cannot afford health care coverage and do not have a primary care physician. Not only are they the first to address the immediate medical issues that arise during the course of a school day, they are also trained to monitor and assess areas of concern that could become long-term issues in an effort to curtail them: Abuse or neglect, childhood obesity and other issues for example. School nurses provide health counseling and education and they help promote positive well-being for students.

These days, school nurses are more than an amenity to the school setting, they play a vital role in students’ health, often allowing them to be at school where they can learn rather than at home where they fall further and further behind in their studies. Students who fall ill at school in many instances sit in the front office waiting for a parent or guardian to get a free moment to pick them up. Those minutes during the course of a 180-day school year can frequently add up to hours that students are taken out of the classroom and miss important instruction time.

Healthy students are more prepared to learn and are more likely to attend school. Our children’s health issues aren’t going to go away because the money to fund school nurses does, and none of us want to end up on the wrong side of the consequence of this decision because the result could be fatal.

State Rep. Bobby Parham, D-Milledgeville, has said recently that he is ready to fight for the funding to keep the school nurse programs intact and we hope his peers will join him in this effort to find a way to provide this resource. The Georgia General Assembly must not allow school nurses to become another victim of the economic times. They must find a way to fund this vital resource for our schools and our children.

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