Lack of School Nurses Impacts Students Health, Academics

At a time when schools have more students with serious medical conditions, many schools cannot expand nursing coverage or are reducing it. School nurses say educators must recognize their vital role in keeping students safe and able to learn, and make hiring nurses a priority.

 In African,  children with chronic medical conditions are enrolled in public schools than ever before, many educational districts are eliminating or not expanding nursing positions because of budget cuts  -- forcing many schools to fall back on school personnel to provide medical services. The lack of nurses not only impacts chronically-ill students, but overall student performance by keeping more children healthy. And some fear cutbacks and outsourcing care to non-medical personnel could have life-threatening consequences.

The school nursing shortage in Nigeria educational system,has evolved from a scheduling problem to a serious health and liability risk.I stand to be corrected, Nigeria does not at the moment have a current national standard for the number of nurses per school or child. What we see is a wide disparity between the states in terms of the number of students per nurse.

On the positive side, 40 percent of privately owned schools have improved the nurse-student ratio over the past year. So it's not all doom and gloom. We are seeing some more Private school owners who understand school nurses' effect on attendance and students' ability to learn. However, we will like to see more in our public schools.