Comments on: California: Home of the Nanny State

By: emmy

emmy — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 19:21:00 +0000

I don’t agree that it has to be a nurse, but if my daughter was diabetic I would want someone trained in diabetic care in her school at all times.

By: Kathleen Weaver

Kathleen Weaver — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:39:00 +0000

You haven't gotten the whole point of the legislation.

The federal law requires that there be someone at the school to provide medical care for diabetic children.

However, few school districts can afford the trained medical staff to provide for the students.

In the past, school districts would try to send all the students needing trained medical care to the same school, but parents did not like the solution.

The compromise is to allowed trained, non-medical personnel to provide the care at the individual schools -- in other words, train teachers or clerical staff to care for these students rather than nurses.

This is what many states are doing.

The education unions are against it because they want more nurses in the schools.

By: Nurse K

Nurse K — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 06:14:00 +0000

As a person who used to be a diabetic kid, I can attest to the fact that it is not hard to poke my finger and give me sugar cubes if my blood sugar is under a certain number. However, this was back when no one had lunchtime shots and lunch was covered by NPH.

Most school districts around here anyway have a school nurse come a certain # of hours per week; otherwise the health aid is there. The nurse is available by phone if there is a question on what to do for a certain child’s treatment. Also, I noticed in my nurses’ training (we had to go to schools) that the aids or nurses would basically take verbal orders from mom or dad if they were reliably informed. “Your son’s blood sugar is 65, how many lunchtime units of humalog would you like him to take?” etc.

By: RoseAG

RoseAG — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0000

I agree that you missed it on this one.

Should the Mom or Dad of diabetic child quit work so they can show up at school to do the diabetes monitoring? Wouldn't you like to hire a nurse or receptionist who had to leave a couple of times a day to monitor her child?

Heck, they hand out tons of pills at schools every morning for ADD and the like, and those aren't nearly as life threatening as diabetes.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:57:00 +0000

This isn’t an nanny state issue. Nanny state is the government telling you have to wear a seat belt, you can’t ride 4-wheeled ATVs and you can’t have a black bottomed pool–good advice in those circumstances.

As anon 3:15 pointed out, there is no way a parent can monitor a kid’s blood sugar while they are in school. This is about another government service offered to help kids–and it certainly will.

You can argue that the government shouldn’t offer this service but you can’t argue that it is an example of a “nanny state”–you misunderstand the term.

By: Zagreus Ammon

Zagreus Ammon — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:13:00 +0000

Off base, out-to-lunch…

By: ER doctor

ER doctor — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:44:00 +0000

I agree, there needs to be someone at the school to help children who need help. It’s the state that’s requiring it be a nurse. Perhaps an “all-purpose” aid would be just as good. Afterall, we send our blind diabetics home with the expectation that they will be able to monitor their sugar, and administer insulin – surely any responsible adult “aid” can do the same. Nurses are expensive and in short supply…that’s the problem. Allow someone else to do the job…afterall, it’s not a difficult job nor does it require a degree or a medical background.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:15:00 +0000

I think you’re being a bit too hard on the schools — even the most responsible parent can’t monitor a 7-year old’s blood suguar while the kid’s in school.

This isn’t a nanny-state issue at all.