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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 6, 2007

Mess On Medication

Regarding 'Hillsborough Needs To Address School Nurses' Warnings - Stat' (Our Opinion, Oct. 5):

Thank you for publishing an article based on school nurses' inability to provide any form of medication, even the distribution of something as minute as a cough drop or calamine lotion. Is the distribution of medicine the excuse being used to avoid a lawsuit?

I am 18 years old and I have been in a predicament where I didn't feel well and all the nurse could offer me was a pack of ice and a bed to lie down on.

I agree with parents, nurses and the one school board member completely on this matter. I believe the child should have been permitted to use the calamine lotion for the rash. If the nurse can only provide ice then the only point of the school nurse is to go to the office and call parents so that they can bring the child medicine. If the parent doesn't want his or her child to be given any type of medication, then his or her child shouldn't go to the nurse's office.

With all of the paperwork parents must complete in order for their child to enter school, I believe there should be a medical form that has different medication on it and the parent can pick and choose what their child can take.

JENNIFER GENEUS

Tampa

Goal Is Healthy Students
Florida Statute 1006.062 permits school personnel to assist students in the administration of prescription medication. It requires school boards to adopt policies and procedures governing the administration of prescription medication. A doctor's note prescribing an over-the-counter medication allows us to administer it according to the statute. Nurses are also regulated by the State Nurse Practice Act, Chapter 464, which allows nurses to administer only medication prescribed by a licensed physician.

Hillsborough County is not alone in this policy of requiring a doctor's note for over-the-counter medications. Check any other Florida county's school policy and you will see it reads almost word for word compared to our policy.

In the Healthy Student Program, a parent enrolls their child providing a health history and permission for treatment. The school physician then assumes the legal responsibility for the prescribing of over-the-counter medicine providing the nurse follows a set of written protocols.

Parents and staff like the Healthy Student Program because it does help keep children at school. But historically, each high school had an RN and LPN to provide the program.

JUDITH GILLEN

Brandon

Thanks For Support

As one of the nurses in our schools, I want to thank The Tampa Tribune for the support and the acknowledgement of the services we are trying desperately to provide our children in our schools. When it comes to the students carrying medications, we also need to consider those life-threatening allergies. In our schools we have students that are allergic to over-the-counter medications that parents might feel is OK for their children to have in their pockets. Then they have friends who are not feeling well and choose to share that simple medication which then becomes a life-threatening allergic reaction.

It seems so simple to the parent of the well child who has a problem now and then, but believe those of us in the trenches: it can be very complicated. Most of us do this because we love to be with the students; it's certainly not for the wages we get paid. Prevention is the very best cure and that is what we strive to do. Sometimes it only takes a 20-minute break and a kind word. We are not trying to end up on easy street; we are trying to provide a safe and healthy environment in which our students can learn.

Thank you again for all your support! It helps to feel we have at least someone on our side.

MARY LOU WHYTE

Tampa

The writer is a school nurse. The writer is a RN.

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