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Grown-up responsibilities

Bill allowing students to administer medicine has some unhappy

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When Chris Holloway gets a heavy "10-pound weight" feeling deep in his 11-year-old lungs, he heads for the nurse's office at Mossy Oaks Elementary School.

• Photo: Okatie Elementary School Nurse Meg Hendy assists Hunter Burnsed, 7, with taking his medication Tuesday afternoon.
  Harmony Motter/The Island Packet
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The trip sometimes can be painful, he said. He wheezes and breathes heavily. Phlegm starts to accumulate in his lungs. He hunches over, short of breath.

"It's real hard to breathe, and it feels like you've got something really heavy in your chest," he said.

When he reaches the office, Chris, who suffers from asthma attacks, finds relief in an inhaler school nurse Terry Nash keeps in a cluttered medicine cabinet filled with other students' medications. Whether children suffer from conditions that sometimes require emergency attention or need a simple daily dosage, Nash is the school's medicinal gatekeeper.

But a bill signed by Gov. Mark Sanford says nurses like Nash could be unnecessary middlemen. The bill was passed to help students who sometimes need medication in an emergency for conditions such as asthma or diabetes.

• Photo: Brandi Hammonds, 11, a fourth-grader at Okatie Elementary School who has type 1 diabetes, points to the spot where she gives herself a shot of insulin three times a day. Many times her insulin shots have to be administered during school hours.
  Harmony Motter/The Island Packet
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Now, with written consent from a parent and the doctor who prescribed the medication and the cooperation of the school, students with special health needs throughout the state could create individual health plans, carry their own medication and take it themselves without the supervision of a school nurse.

But as school districts across the state work to implement new policies required by the bill and thesState Department of Education, several Beaufort County school nurses are just learning about the bill -- and many aren't happy.

"I strongly disagree with it," said Hilton Head Elementary schools Nurse Ann Filizzi. "The elementary-aged child is too young to deal with their own illnesses. There's too much medical knowledge required not to have a nurse supervising the dispersal of medications."

RISK OF ABUSE?

Filizzi said a fifth-grade student brought an unauthorized asthma inhaler to school Tuesday and used it five times -- causing the child to "get a high" and require medical attention.

• Photo: Okatie Elementary School student Brandi Hammonds, 11, checks her blood-sugar levels during school hours Tuesday afternoon. Brandi, a fourth-grader, has type 1 diabetes.
  Harmony Motter/The Island Packet
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"It's very dangerous," Filizzi said. "This is a prime example of why kids shouldn't be allowed to have control of their own medicine."

For that reason, several school nurses -- including Nash and Filizzi -- said they would never want any of their students using medication, such as asthma inhalers or diabetes medicine, on their own.

The state Education Department is recommending that all controlled substances, such as Ritalin or painkillers, continue to be locked up. But Nash and other elementary school nurses said they worry students will be able to abuse medications like inhalers.

Chris and fellow Mossy Oaks Elementary student Nick Lanier, 10, said students have tried to use their inhalers improperly.

A University of Michigan study released shortly after the bill passed showed that 6 percent of fifth- and sixth-graders in the study admitted to misusing inhalers. Fifteen percent of eighth-graders admitted to inhaler abuse.

Nick said he had to snatch an inhaler from a friend who tried to use it once.

"They think it's kind of cool," he said. "They think it looks fun, kind of. But if someone stole it, I would defend it like I would defend myself."

That's one of the reasons H.E. McCracken Middle School nurse Melissa Shannon thinks some of these children should be allowed to self-administer medications for severe diseases like asthma and diabetes.

"Those kids aren't going to abuse that medication," Shannon said. "Children with asthma, it's one of those medicines that kids tend to use very appropriately."

She said that when children are outside playing or even in remote parts of the building, it's difficult for her to be able to get their medicine to them on time.

BILL DEBATE

At a Beaufort County Board of Education meeting last month, board Vice Chairman Richard Tritschler, who used to work in the emergency medical services field, said he thought the bill was poorly designed. He said he's seen high school athletes abuse inhalers at sporting events in an attempt to open the lungs and breathe easier during strenuous competition.

"It's stupid legislation. That's all it is," he said.

State Sen. Luke Rankin, R-Horry County, co-sponsored the bill and said he hasn't heard any complaints in his district.

"It was a good idea then, and it's a good idea today," he said last week. "Sometimes special accommodations need to be made" for students.

Cynthia Hayes, assistant superintendent of student services for the Beaufort County School District, is working to alter the district's policy to adhere to the bill. The district has had individual health plans for several years, though she said few students use them.

"As well-intended as the plan is ... there's a chance something could go wrong," she said.

Chris and Nick said they'd like to be able to use their own inhalers. Chris received proper training, and Nick's mother, Lorie Lanier, said Nick is responsible enough to use his inhaler, but she worries he might give it to another child.

"No matter how responsible the kids are," Nash said, "they're still kids."

Island Packet reporter Peter Frost contributed to this report. To comment on this story, please go to islandpacket.com.