Danville School Nurses Oppose Diabetes ‘Care Act

Legislation that would let teachers and other school staff assist students with diabetes won't see any support from school nurses in Danville.

The Care of Students with Diabetes Act has already passed the House, and Senate vote could come this week. A community activist from Chicago says insulin shots, counting carbohydrates, and other care is a simple process nowadays. Suzanne Elder says her diabetic daughter was handling those duties herself by the time she was 8. Elder says caring for a diabetic person has become much easier over the past 20 years. "Most kids don't use syringes anymore," says Elder. "Most kids use pens, most kids use pumps. So they even speak with a nomanclature that outs them as out of date and untrained. And yet, we still are not about undoing nurses or taking them out of school. We just want everybody trained in the basics."

Danville school nurse Judy Pendleton contends teachers, secretaries, and other school staff should not be handling duties like monitoring a child's carbohydrates in addition to their regular jobs. "That person would be responsible for doing a blood sugar," says Pendleton. "That person would be responsible for drawing up and adminstering insulin, and that person would also be taking orders from the parent. Having been through nursing school, sometimes, even at that you have to make snap decisions." The legislation saw overwhelming support in the House. Danville Republican Bill Black says the measure was drafted by House GOP Leader Tom Cross, who also has a diabetic daughter, and carefully researched the bill before proposing it. Black estimates that a few thousand children in Illinois schools attend one without a nurse, forcing the child to attend elsewhere or for the district to call 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency. He says the bill isn't intended to replace nurses - just to give districts another option.