With kids back in school, families with children who have diabetes and educators throughout the country once again face the challenge of ensuring that students with diabetes receive proper care during the school day.
Students with type 1 diabetes require insulin administration with a syringe or insulin pump multiple times each day, and students with type 2 diabetes may require oral medications and/or insulin. While many students can do routine diabetes care tasks by themselves, younger, less experienced children may need help. And in a diabetes emergency, when a child's life is on the line, he or she cannot wait for a nurse to arrive from another school or even for 911 responders.
While the school nurse is the preferred provider of this care, the reality is that most schools do not have a full-time school nurse. Even in those schools that do, the nurse is generally not available during field trips or extracurricular activities. Thus, one person providing care is not enough.
The American Diabetes Association (ADA), through its Safe at School campaign, is working to ensure that all school staff members have a basic understanding of diabetes, know who to contact in an emergency, and that a small number of school staff members are trained to perform diabetes care tasks, including insulin and glucagon administration, when the school nurse is absent or unavailable. The diabetes health care community strongly supports this model as the best-and safest-way to meet the health care needs of students. The National Parents Teacher Association also supports ADA's approach.
This model has helped schools meet the health care needs of students with diabetes and meet federal requirements that these students be able to fully participate in all school-sponsored activities.
"Diabetes must be managed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A student with diabetes cannot take a break from diabetes when he or she boards the school bus in the morning," said Linda M. Siminerio, RN, PhD, CDE. "It's vital that, as students go back to school, they and their parents know they will be in a medically safe environment that affords them the same educational opportunities as other students."
For more information about diabetes care in schools and ADA's Safe at School Campaign, visit diabetes.org/safeatschool.
Parents of children with diabetes need to be sure that their kids are getting proper care.
Author: Stacey Moore
Author Bio:
Products that earn the ENERGY STAR prevent greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. EPA and DOE. For more information about ENERGY STAR, visit www.energystar.gov. Using energy efficiently at home can be as easy as changing a light bulb.
