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Imagine your child has seizures. You send them off to school.
They have a seizure.
Now, your child's teacher, or some other non-medical "professional" "volunteer", who happens to be on the campus, begins to take action.
What do they do?
Why, what they have received a few hours (probably a day-long seminar) of "medical training" to do!
With split second decision, they grab their handy-dandy syringe containing Diastat, drop your child's pants, in front of the entire classroom of students ( I suppose, right---because are they going to transport a seizing body?), roll them over on their side (as the child is convulsing), split their buttocks ( as the child is convulsing), insert the syringe into their rectal cavity (as the child is convulsing), inject the contents of the syringe...and...hope for the best.
Only...
...the best does not occur.
Besides being humiliated in front of their classmates because their entire backside was exposed, and their teacher had to stick an object into their rectum, your child was NOT having the type of seizure Diastat was meant to treat.
Problem.
Oh, and the teacher, not a medical professional, accidentally administered the Diastat incorrectly. Now, there is respiratory depression. Your child is barely breathing.
STOP THE NIGHTMARE! Right?
No. The nightmare is JUST beginning.
California's governor just signed SB161 which will allow PRECISELY what I just described.
Where are the school nurses, who ARE qualified to perform this invasive procedure?
Gone, at least for the most part ( schools still have them on campus part-time). They are gone with enriching field trips, teacher aides, an adequate number of Special Education teachers and programs for students in need, music, physical education, and art teachers for all grade levels, etc.
Gone with millions and millions of public education dollars.
Gone.
I announce, I will NOT be "voluntarily" signing up to learn to administer this potentially dangerous drug to a seizing child.
As I have proclaimed, time and time again, that I am not qualified to deal with the mass variety of special education needs I see in my classroom year after year, ever increasing due to cuts in special education programs, for which I only had ONE credential course, and for which a full-time special education teacher is required, I hereby proclaim, that I would NOT be qualified to do what a registered nurse SHOULD be doing.
And so, in the future, should you see fellow education colleagues on the six o'clock news, because the "liability" language in the bill was not enough to protect them from the civil and criminal liabilities which are sure to arise from this, given the present litigious culture in which we live, please please have mercy.
