Some school nurses in Utah are assigned to six or seven different elementaries. Others are instructing office staff how to give insulin shots because they don’t have enough time to administer them. In one district, the only nurse there is responsible for 34 times the recommended number of students she should have under her care.
“These are just not good numbers,” said BettySue Hinkson, school nurse consultant for the state. “We are nowhere near where we need to be.”
An annual report on school nursingreleased Thursday by the Utah Department of Health chronicles the state’s continued struggles to staff enough nurses at its public K-12 institutions.