As coronavirus spreads, there’s a big shortage of school nurses
What it doesn’t say: Not every school in the district has a dedicated nurse. So nurses travel among numerous schools to take care of children — a situation hardly unique to the school system in California’s state capital. There is a school nursing shortage throughout the country at a time when nurses are arguably more important than at any time in the recent past.
According to the National Association of School Nurses, 25 percent of schools do not employ a nurse, while 35 percent employ part-time nurses. That leaves school personnel with little or no medical training to handle sometimes serious medical situations. But even schools that have full-time nurses often share them with other campuses because there simply are not enough for each school building in districts throughout the country.
“It is really dangerous,” said Nho Le-Hinds, a licensed school nurse in Sacramento who travels between multiple campuses to treat children. Nho, who has been a nurse for 25 years, said she has five traditional public schools in her portfolio and 15 private schools, where she tends to students who have been placed at those schools by the district.
“We have to train nonmedical people to do all kinds of things that are medical,” Nho said. “When we break our legs, we don’t go to our accountant to get it fixed. At the school site, we ask kids to go to someone with serious conditions who has never been trained in anything medical.”
Medical authorities recommend schools have one full-time licensed nurse for every 750 students. According to Kidsdata.org, California has one nurse for every 2,500 students, among the nation’s CONTINUE READING: As coronavirus spreads, there’s a big shortage of school nurses - The Washington Post
