Protecting children’s health

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 | 2:08 a.m.

With a new school year just around the corner in Southern Nevada, now is an appropriate time to talk about a critical resource that is in short supply.

That would be the school nurse.

Judging from alarming statistics published Tuesday in USA Today, the ratio of nurses to students is far lower than the recommended standard from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC standard is one nurse for every 750 students, but the national ratio is actually one nurse for every 971 students, according to the newspaper’s analysis of census data from 2005 through 2007.

In Nevada the ratio is more abysmal at one nurse for every 1,814 students, according to a study of registered nurses performed last year by the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md.

This shortage should be rectified immediately because nurses represent the front lines of defense when it comes to the potential outbreak of disease in schools. As many parents know from experience, children who get sick at school often spread germs to their mothers and fathers, who spread their illnesses to co-workers, and so forth.

Highly contagious and often fatal diseases such as swine flu have a greater chance of spreading without early detection.

The nurses’ association, though, estimates that 25 percent of the nation’s public schools don’t even have a nurse. That amounts to taking a real gamble with children’s health.

Schools should step up their recruitment of nurses by offering competitive salaries. This nation also should increase efforts to encourage high school graduates to pursue degrees in nursing, and should make a greater investment in colleges and universities that provide the training.

School nurses do more than help detect diseases. As the association points out, they also help deliver emergency care, administer medication and vaccines, provide health counseling, and identify vision and hearing problems that impair learning.

The health of students is of paramount importance, which is why the services provided by nurses are too vital to leave out of school budgets.