Deadly Policies
Many Sick Students Can’t Carry Asthma Inhalers in School
According to Dr. Kim Witzmann of Children’s National Medical Center there will be 5,000 deaths this year from asthma attacks because the victim could not get to their medication in time.
Kim McFerrin was in seventh grade when she had her first asthma attack on the soccer field at her school in Northeast Salem, Ore.
“I kept sneezing and the more I kept sneezing, the harder it was getting for me to breathe and it got to the point where I couldn’t breathe at all and I knew my inhaler was across the street and on the other side of the school,” Kim recalled.
Kim’s inhaler was locked in the principal’s office, because even though the school knew about her illness, it was against school policy for her to carry an inhaler with her.
Her mother then convinced her to carry her medication with her on the sly and she did so until she graduated last year. Twenty-five states have legislation specifically mandating that children be allowed to carry their own asthma medication. In the other half of the USA school districts decide for themselves. In many of them students are forced into the Hobson’s choice that Kim faced - endanger your life or break the rules.
Dr. Christina Johns, a Good Morning America medical contributor and an expert on emergency pediatric care, says that the inability of children to have their medication within reach is dangerous.
“In the emergency department at Children’s National Medical Center, where I’ve worked as a physician for the last six years, asthma is the number one diagnosis we see in our patients,” Johns said. “And one of the only ways to keep children out of the hospital is to get them their medication immediately.”
What should you do if your child isn’t allowed to hold onto his medication? Get your doctor’s help to express how serious the problem is. Talk to the principal, petition the schoolboard. Personally, I would do what Kim’s mother did and have my child keep their medication on their person regardless of the rules. If the child is caught with an inhaler that can be dealt with. It’s far more important that the child be safe.
“It doesn’t get any better without the inhaler,” Kim said. “When you have an asthma attack, you have to have it right there.”
Homeschool your kid. Screw the public schools.
Homeschooling’s all well and good for those willing and able to take it on, but what of those less fortunate kids who must remain in public school and put themselves at risk to becoming victim to these ludicrous zero tolerance policies?
As parents, the general public must be made aware of these nightmarish situations so a united front can be presented. I’d previously mentioned consideration writing a book compiling these real-life ZT stories w/my own commentary, observations, etc…this could be the wake-up call our public school system needs!
So far, all I have is a title and a tentative chapter list, but there’s also a framework, and I’m confident I can put together something worth reading.
Maybe parents should have a lawyer on retainer to go over the Student Conduct Code. (Of course I know that some duplicitous school officials don’t even follow their own procedures when it suits their nefarious purposes — kangaroo hearings — but that’s another story).
Might be a good idea to have a back-up education plan for the kid (homeschooling, on-line schools, moving kid to a relative out of state, whatever) because it’s just so easy for a student to have his academic career ruined by these thugs.
I know of people (like my father in law for example) who go into anaphalatic (sp?) shock from bee stings and such. Also others with similarly violant reactions from things like poison ivy etc. The entire body goes into hystemic shock and if not treated fast, you die. In some cases, the reaction is so fast and so severe, that oral medications (especially if not immediatly at hand) are too slow because you are incapacitated before you can ingest the medication or even if ingested, too fast for it to be absorbed and start to work.
These indiviudals need an antihystimine close a hand for fast treatment. In some cases, they carry an injector of medication, others get by with pills or liquid medications.
If your kid needs fast treatment, and his medication is locked up in the nurses or principals office and the gym class is outside on the atheletic fields, this potentially isn’t going to be workable.
Wonder if the folk responsible for “ZT” considered that one!
We had a friend of the family who worked for the local state college. One summer, when the campus was overrun by a cheerleading camp, he came across a group standing around a teenaged girl on the ground going into anaphylactic shock. Her “beesting kit” was open and on the ground beside her, and the adult nominally in charge of the group was dithering around, audibly wondering what to do and (worse) worrying about getting sued.
The friend of the family, being allergic to beestings himself, pulled out the syringe and injected the girl, then stayed with her until she was better… and muttering “I’m never doing anything with THIS group again.”
When in doubt, choose saving a life.
Puhlease…. homeschooling is not an option for those of us who work for a living, and can’t loll around the house all day. The best attack is appealing to the school principal on the basis of common sense and demonstrating the absurdity of zero tolerance when it comes to legally prescribed life-saving medications. If that doesn’t work, I’ve found that making some noise at school board meetings, PTA meetings and with letters to the editor make change happen pretty quickly.
my son is 7 and we have had to go to truancy court because he missed so much school due to his asthma. the school forbids him from bringing his inhaler.
i went to court and was made to feel lower then pond scum because my son missed 50 days of school and was even in the hospital.
i just wish that more could be done without making us parents feel unworthy.