More Asthma Showing Up In The Schools - schools do not let children with asthma self medicate

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[chance33_98]

More Asthma Showing Up In The Schools

By Jon Hanian

Girl With Asthma

Boise, ID. - Charlie Saad is a Boise area grade schooler who knows all about asthma. "It feels like a little thing stuck in your throat when you are wheezing."

Charlie's mom, Susan Saad, says it can be a terrifying experience. "We have spent a lot of nights in the emergency room."

Charlie has missed two to three weeks of school because of his asthma. In fact the lung association believes there are many other children out there with undiagnosed asthma. Susan says schools and other parents should know more about this chronic condition. "And so there needs to be an awareness in the school. There needs to be an awareness from the parent. They need to understand what the disease is and how it can be treated."

It is treated very effectively through the use of an inhaler. "It actually relaxes their airwaves to open them up so that they can once again gain control of their breathing."

There is a problem according to some and that is schools all over the state of Idaho and other state's for that matter, do not let children with asthma self medicate. And according to the American Lung Association' Mary Hutchison, that has led to a few deaths.

"This year our sister office in Reno, Nevada has dealt with two deaths in the local school district because of asthma."

But School policy says inhalers are supposed to be kept with the school nurse. Problem is some schools in the state don't have a school nurse. The other problem is rushing the inhaler from the Nurse's station to the kid on the playground wastes precious time.

So the Lung Association has kicked off an area wide education program to inform schools, parents, teachers even school nurses what to do if an asthma attack happens on their playground.

[Clara Lou]

Students self-medicate here in Texas. One of my students used his inhaler in my classroom yesterday and didn't miss a beat doing it.

[Tax-chick]

Sounds like you need to get your kids with asthma out of the public schools, doesn't it, unless you want them to die while procedures are followed.

[MineralMan]

Any student with asthma who has a prescribed inhaler should be allowed to carry it with him/her at all times for use when needed. Schools which prohibit this are putting themselves in line for some crippling lawsuits should a child die for lack of a prescribed inhaler. This is just ridiculous.

Same applies to epi-pens for extreme allergies. If the child is old enough to have a doctor prescribe self-administered epi-pen therapy, then schools should allow the child to carry the thing. Any other response could easily come too late, causing the death of a student, who could otherwise be saved by self-injection.

It's going to take a couple of deaths and huge lawsuits to make schools understand that their "zero-tolerance" policies are stupid in the case of prescribed live-saving drugs, which must be administered immediately to save a life.

[George from New England]

"Unions are killing our kids"

Think you'll ever see a headline like that? NOT!

[ladylib]

A pediatrician (who homeschools her children) said on another site that children with asthma are always to have their inhalers with them.

If I had a child with asthma, I would never send him to a school that has a policy of keeping the inhalers in the nurse's office.

[George from New England]

Maybe I need to eloborate...

With almost every employee in a school unionized this probably includes the school nurse. If a small school doesn't have a nurse, then add another dues paying individual to the payroll, taxpayers funded.

You can't let the students carry their medicine or have anyone other than a bonifide nurse control their medicine that wouldn't force the employement of another union staff member, we need the nurse.

[gracie1]

There have been deaths and there have been lawsuits already. A few years ago a child died in the nurses office from an asthma attack in one of the small towns around here. The problem was that noone in the office knew how to work the nebulizer machine. In many California schools there is no full time nurse. Each school may have a health aide who also has other duties. The school district that this occured in has an ironclad policy of absolutely no medication of any sort is to be carried on the student. The parents sued, but the school settled and the district as far as I know has refused to change it's policy.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Liberals think it's okay for kids as young as twelve to have abortions without having to notify their parents, but taking life-saving medication without intervention by the nanny-state is a no-no.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

Which leads to a liberal dilemma--Is it okay for teenaged girls to take RU-486 in school without supervision?

[First Amendment]

First of all, it's criminal kids can't have inhalers with them. Second, as an asthmatic myself, there are things that aggravate a lot of asthma - carpets, perfumes (such as those in most clothes detergents and softeners) and no fresh air. Also a lot of cleaning products - either the chemicals in them or the perfumes. At the local hospital here when they have an asthma support group meeting, they ask that people not wear perfumes. At a local clinic, they have signs asking people not to wear perfumes because of patients with asthma.

I also have a friend with the same type of asthma and she has had the exact same experiences.
When I got rid of all perfumed cleaners, detergents etc from my house my asthma improved tremendously. Most of my symptoms are now outside the house when I'm around others who use perfumed products.

[TheDon]

There is a problem according to some and that is schools all over the state of Idaho and other state's for that matter, do not let children with asthma self medicate. And according to the American Lung Association' Mary Hutchison, that has led to a few deaths.

Separation of school and state PING!