NPR's Michel Martin talks with National Association of School Nurses Executive Director Donna Mazyck about the challenges facing school nurses amid the coronavirus pandemic.
We've spent the last few weeks thinking about the tough decisions that have to be made before the start of another school year. And now we want to focus on school nurses. Throughout the country, there is a shortage of them. In some states, school nurses are technically responsible for overseeing the health of thousands of students, and many schools don't even have one nurse on site.
MAZYCK: You're right. We're not close to that. Currently, 25% of U.S. schools have no nurse at all. And about 40% of those schools have a nurse only part of the day - a nurse who's shared among several schools. What we know is that school nurses care for the entire student population, especially the most vulnerable students. School nurses are identifying students at risk and helping them get the care they need.
MAZYCK: Well, before schools closed, school nurses were educating and reinforcing to the school community frequent hand-washing and keeping hands away from their faces, frequent cleaning of commonly touched surfaces, isolating students who presented with symptoms of infectious disease. MAZYCK: Right. And we are hearing about them. We actually did a survey of school nurses in late April to find out what equipment they had before schools closed. And 23% didn't have an isolation room. And many of them did not have the N95 masks or the PPE that you would have for health care providers. And those are pieces of equipment that are essential to have in the school building for the nurses who are health care providers.
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