Epidemic of Nurse Visitors

Epidemic of Students

Too many students going to nurses during classes

by Destiny Dunn

Cases of COVID-19 may have slowed, but the problem of students visiting the nurse have reached epic proportions. Some A lot of reasons can be used for going to the nurse, and many are used as excuses for students to leave. Illnesses, injuries, mental health, daily medicavisit the nurse once, multiple times, or some even visit daily.

“Between both health rooms we average: 50-60 visits daily, 275-300 visits weekly, “ So many use excuses like 1,000+ visits month- feeling sick to get out of their ly,” says Lori Stout, one of Nation Ford classes, and we can not deny High’s two nurses. This high number them access to nurses. of visits to nurses’ offices is too frequent ” for students to be seriously needing a nurse, especially considering there is only so much time that can be given per student, and there are only two nurses. Nursing staff are struggling to find a way to stop students from visiting the nurse often, but there isn’t much that the school can do about issues like this as there is no way of knowing whether students are actually in need of the nurse or if they would just like to have a bit of time outside of their classes. tions, diabetic visits, restroom visits, and feminine products are what Stout says are the most common reasons for visiting the school nurse. “There are definitely some students that use the health room as an ‘escape’ from class–those students are typically the ones we see very frequently,” Stout says. “This is our major issue in this scenario. So many use excuses like feeling sick to get out of their classes, and we can not deny them access to nurses.” It seems like there can’t be much of a solution to the problem, though the school has put a rule in place to hopefully solve this dilemma: “We have asked that no students be allowed to come to the nurse without a pass from their teacher, so we know that they indeed have permission to be in our offices, con-

Nation Ford High nurse Lori Stout helping Adrian Fischer (‘23) with a sore knee Nov. 30.

tinued education regarding appropriate reasons to visit the health room,” Stout said.

Faculty received an email about the problem. The Talon newspaper ran a story suggesting feminine products be placed in the bathrooms so the nursing staff does not need to deal with more visiters. That solution would help the nurses focus more on the people who need their assistance–and not just their supplies. Nursing staff get too many students only coming for a peppermint or ice, and that’s too much stress when they have their own work to do, including taking care of the very ill or special education students.

This overuse of requests to see the nurses needs to stop. Students cannot keep leaving class for the nurse over nonessential reasons, and meanwhile, others need serious attention. Ideas like putting female products in the bathrooms help, but students themselves solve this problem first to assure proper attention from the nurses.