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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 2018)
News Page 10 Street Reading, writing and rural health Beaverton’s N ina Fekaris, president o f the National Association o f School Nurses, talks about the * complicated overlap o f housing, health care and education, particularly in Oregon’s rural communities ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH CO NSIDINE BY SARAH HANSELL STAFF WRITER to Oregon Health & A c ccording < Science )regon has 53 service àreas in 24 counties where the population’s health needs are not being met. That means that Oregonians in those areas are not getting adequate access to primary physical, mental and oral health care services. Among those most affected are thé youngest and most rural residents in the state. Nina Fekaris has been a school nurse with the Beaverton School District for almost 30 years, and L last summer was named president of Housing Rural Oregon the National Association of School Nurses. She believes This article is part of Street Roots’ that providing more Housing Rural Oregon series. The goal is school nurses to to broaden our views around housing and rural Oregon would housing-related policy to promote better have a deep impact understanding of the issues communities on not only the face across the state. health of rural Oregon communities, » » » » » » » mm but also the educational outcomes. According to Fekaris, school nurses are much more than the person you go to when you’re not feeling well and you need a note. Rather, school musses are community educators who provide preventative health care that keeps kids in school and boosts graduation rates. Fekaris talks about a school nurse in Chicago who discovered that students who were being expelled for bringing weapons to school wereactually so afraid for their safety they brought them in to protect themselves from being attacked. Another school nurse inrural Tennessee organized Telehealth, health care telecommunication technology, in order to get both students and families access to vital health care. . . A j m L . fo t .fttoidea X s-M a. low4a co me.f a« aih^s?— i students who are hom eless, and especially students in rural areas with little access, sometimes the school nurse is the only health care option. Sarah H ansell: In a 2016 article, you said that the ideal school nurse to student ratio should be 1 to 750, but in Oregon the ratio is something like I to 3,000. I t ’s estimated that 40 percent o f school districts throughout the state don’t have school nurses at all. So where are we now? N in a Fekaris: I do not think those statistics have really changed any. I haven’t heard that districts are eliminating positions, so I don’t think we’re worse off, but I also don’t think we’re much better. S.H.: Could you tell me what some o f the big impacts are of that vast ratio? N.F.: The (job) of the school nurse is to make sure that her students are healthy and that they’re safe and that they can be in the building and ready to learn. We’re looking at trying to build capacity, not only within our students, but we also support our families. When we have such high ratios, or even when districts don’t have any school nurse services, we believe that there are unmet health needs that are going unnoticed or under-noticed. The number of children with chronic or acute health conditions has kind of skyrocketed over the past 10 years. The number of children with anaphylaxis, which is g life threatening allergic reaction, that has increased dramatically. Our number of children with Type 1 diabetes has increased dramatically. And those are life-threatening health conditions, that unless school staff understand th e signs and sym ptom s and know how to trea t quickly, can result in a m » ¡ child’s death. And so if th e re is no health care provider, and school nurses are oftentimes the first front line kind of health care providers that children have in school, if that service isn’t available, then I believe we’re putting children in Oregon at risk. S.H.: W hat are school nurses seeing these days that they weren’t seeing in the past? Essentially, w hàt’s the experience o f the 2 1 s t? century school nurse in Oregon? N.F.: The dramatic increase of children with life-threatening allergies and Type 1 diabetes: These medical conditions significantly impact the amount of time and planning and preparation that a school heeds to have in place to keep those students safe. The other huge issue that we’re seeing is mental health. Mental and behavioral health concerns have also skyrocketed, and that has been within the last five years that we’ve really seen that huge increase. It’s children coming to school with severe anxiety; early, early diagnoses of kids with potential eating disorders; children that are experiencing such kind of traumas or adverse childhood events in their life outside of school that coming to school is kind of their safe haven. S.H.: ow much would you say housing insecurity and homelessness affects students’ health and school performance? N.F.: It’s a dramatic effect. There have been studies that have shown that homeless See NURSES, page 11
