Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The News Review

Editorial: School nurse shortage
Rewriting a prescription for student health disaster

Some of us apparently have been blissfully slumbering in Pleasantville.

The reverie was shattered by a recent News-Review story informing us that Oregon ranks 49th out of 51 states and regions (Hawaii was excluded) in nurse-to-student ratios. That’s according to a 2007 survey by the National School Nurse Association. Only Utah and Michigan did worse.

This is nothing less than shameful. Oregonians can’t even quote the perennial “Thank God for Mississippi” put-down employed by that state’s Deep South neighbors.

Many of us without children in the local school system (and perhaps a few others) have assumed that each school has its own chipper nurse dispensing aspirin and homespun wisdom.

The truth is far from that serene fantasy.

As noted by reporter DD Bixby, the traditional school nurse is unknown in Douglas County schools. Roseburg High School students have regular access to a school nurse at the RHS health center. That’s it. At other schools, the prospect of medical treatment means calling parents or 911.

The school nurse shortage has led to less than optimum measures, such as training teachers and instructional aides, already overburdened, to treat bee stings or adjust feeding tubes.

Efforts have been made to address the problem. The Mercy Foundation three years ago started the Healthy Kids Outreach Program, which has resulted in nurses providing health education in five county school districts. In addition, the Douglas Education Service District contracts with the local health department for a part-time nurse working with most schools within the county.

Credit is due to both the Mercy Foundation and Douglas ESD. It’s hard to imagine what our schools would do without them, especially given that an ESD tally of county students with special medical needs has spiked from 20 to 142 children since 2005.

The financial frights of recent months — our regional close call losing the safety net revenue combined with continuing national fiscal crises — may make school nurses look like a luxury for palmier times. But are they?

It’s tough out there for kids. Recent News-Review stories have delivered grim statistics. More than 450 county teens are considered homeless by federal definition. Half of Douglas County 11th-graders and more than a third of eighth-graders admitted to drinking alcohol within days of answering a 2006 statewide survey.

In the face of such facts, making a push to get nurses in schools may resemble applying a Band-Aid to a spurting artery.

But these difficult times make it more urgent that our children have access to another caring adult at school, and one who is trained to observe problems deeper than a scraped elbow.

Surely we can at least keep up with Mississippi.